{"id":761279,"date":"2026-02-13T07:37:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/761279\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T07:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:37:30","slug":"japans-foreign-workforce-rises-to-record-2-6-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/761279\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Foreign Workforce Rises to Record 2.6 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJapan Data<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEconomy<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPolitics<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSociety<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLifestyle<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tFeb 13, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tThe number of foreign workers in Japan has climbed for a thirteenth consecutive year, amid ongoing labor shortages in many industries.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t Meeting Labor Shortages<\/p>\n

As of October 2025, there were 2.6 million foreign workers in Japan, a rise of 11.7% year on year. With labor shortages leading businesses to actively recruit foreign workers, the total has reached record-setting highs for 13 consecutive years.<\/p>\n

By residence status, the largest category consisted of 870,000 people on an \u201cengineer\/specialist in humanities\/international services\u201d visa related to their profession or technical field, followed by 650,000 \u201cstatus-based residents,\u201d such as permanent residents or spouses of Japanese nationals, and 500,000 technical trainees.<\/p>\n

\"Foreign<\/a><\/p>\n

Other statuses in the data include \u201cpermission for other activity\u201d\u2014granted to foreign residents engaged in labor or other activity not covered by their original status of residence, such as exchange students taking on work or residents performing tasks outside their designated industries\u2014and \u201cdesignated activities,\u201d covering a wide range of activities from amateur sports to internships, working holidays, and job-searching after graduation from a Japanese school.<\/p>\n

By nationality, Vietnam had the largest number of workers in Japan, with around 610,000, or 23.6% of the total, up 6.2% year on year. It was followed by China (including Hong Kong and Macao) with 430,000, and the Philippines with 260,000, respectively. The largest year-on-year increases came from Myanmar (42.5%), Indonesia (34.6%), and Sri Lanka (28.9%).<\/p>\n

\"Foreign<\/a><\/p>\n

By industry, the largest number of foreign workers were employed in manufacturing (24.7% of the total), followed by the service sector (15.2%) and wholesale and retail (13.3%). The foreign worker population is concentrated in major urban areas, with 25.4% of the total in Tokyo, 9.7% in Aichi Prefecture, and 8.1% in Osaka Prefecture.<\/p>\n

\"Foreign<\/a><\/p>\n

Data Sources<\/p>\n

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo \u00a9\u00a0PhotoAC.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t foreign workers<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t employment<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t labor<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t Vietnam<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan Data Economy Politics Society Lifestyle Feb 13, 2026 The number of foreign workers in Japan has climbed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,3374,42052,8175,16,15,2150],"class_list":["post-761279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-foreign-workers","tag-labor","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vietnam"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116062181576123771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}