Japan, which has the world’s second-oldest population, is seeing a record increase in foreign nationals, official data showed Wednesday, July 24. Media reports attributed the increase to the lifting of pandemic-related border restrictions, facilitating the return of foreign students and workers.
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With a chronically low birth rate, the Japan to the second population the oldest in the worldbehind Monaco. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has implemented policies aimed at boosting births, while warning that the country is ” on the verge of being unable to continue functioning as a society “.
A need for foreign labor
As of January 1, the country had 3.32 million foreign residents, according to figures released Thursday, July 25. That’s an 11 percent increase from a year ago, and a record high since the Ministry of Internal Affairs began compiling the data in 2013. Foreign residents make up about 2.7 percent of Japan’s population of 124.9 million.
Japanese media attributed the increase in the foreign population to the lifting of strict border restrictions put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, which encouraged the return of foreign students and workers. In 2018, the government revised the country’s immigration policies to make it more attractive for foreign workers to settle in the archipelago, our correspondent reported. Frederic Charlesbecause the country needs labor. Thus in 2019, the authorities had created two new visas to accommodate immigrant labor.
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The number of Japanese citizens residing in Japan stood at 121.6 million as of Jan. 1, according to the data, down 861,237 people in 2023, the 15th consecutive annual decline and the largest on record.
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