Japan To Embark On An Era Of "Mass Foreign Immigration"

Japan appears to be transitioning from a homogenous society to embrace ‘diversity and inclusivity’ by ushering in “an era of mass foreign immigration.”

It’s set to be a massive change for a country that was still up until recently 97.5% ethnic Japanese, according to the CIA World Factbook.

A Bloomberg report details how rapidly declining native birth rates, an aging society and a chronic labor shortage is fueling the importation of millions of foreigners who “are changing the face of Japan.”

The number of foreign workers in Japan has now exceeded 2 million, a 12.4% increase on 2022. The East Asian country needs at least 647,000 working-age immigrants per year to meet its 11 million worker shortage by 2040.

“Japan is entering an era of mass foreign immigration,” said Junji Ikeda, president of Saikaikyo, a Hiroshima-based agency that sources and supervises foreign workers. “Incremental adjustments will not suffice,” he added.

Under one program alone, 820,000 migrants will be admitted to work in the transportation and logistics sectors, a doubling of the previously agreed number, in order “to make efforts to realize an inclusive society,” according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.

While the process is being implemented under ‘skilled worker visas’, the actual roles migrants will fill include taxi drivers, bus drivers and factory workers.

The service industry will also be increasingly filled with foreign migrants, who will subsequently be allowed to bring their families to stay in Japan indefinitely.

The Economist reports that a “glimpse at Japan’s future” looks like convenience stores being staffed overwhelmingly by migrants, highlighting “the importance of immigration.”

The news outlet cites one such 7-Eleven store in central Tokyo where “all the staff are Burmese.”

“Gearoid Reidy in an article for the Japan Times estimates that the number of overseas workers has more than doubled in the last decade, while the broader foreign community, which includes children and students, has risen by 50 per cent,” reports the Spectator.

“Reidy envisages a time when more than 10 per cent of Japan’s population will be foreign born, putting the famously homogenous, exclusive, nation on a par with the UK, U.S and France.”

Good luck with that.

At the end of last year, the government announced that crime had risen for the first time in 20 years, a situation native Japanese people might become more familiar with in the coming years.

A BBC News report about Japan’s previous refusal to adopt mass migration highlighted how the country was “stuck in the past,” with that past being characterized as “a peaceful, prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict.”

Apparently, affordable property prices, “refusing immigration and maintaining the patriarchy,” and the fact that “Japan still feels like Japan, and not a reproduction of America,” is being “stuck in the past.”

However, while importing large numbers of workers, Japan does still seem to be keen to limit foreign nationals claiming to be asylum seekers.

A new system starting in June will give the government the power to deport foreigners who have had their asylum claims rejected multiple times.

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