According to the Labor Ministry data, for the very first time, the number of foreigners working in Japan is expected to exceed the one million mark. This is a major turning point in the country’s labor market history that has traditionally hired almost 100% Japanese nationals. The hiring policies of the country’s big companies such as Hitachi, Toyota, and Shiseido are now indicating a need to diversify their manpower so as to ‘better align themselves with globalization’ (Shiseido).
Record numbers of foreign workers and their reception into Japan’s big businesses. Latest government data show that at the end of June 2015, the number of foreigners in Japan exceeded 2.17 million and in 2014, a record 13,000 were allowed to exchange their student visas for work permits. Certain big Japanese employers are betting on increased diversity and are now opening their doors to foreign workers, with Toyota being a case in point when in January 2016 the company declared, “For the past three years we have been boosting our foreign hires.
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