[Industry Knowledge] How advanced is the employment of foreign caregiving staff?

I will introduce data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare regarding the employment of foreign care workers.

One method for care service providers to employ foreign care workers is the acceptance of candidates for care workers based on the EPA, which began in fiscal year 2008. The number of accepted candidates has been increasing year by year, reaching 4,302 by fiscal year 2018. EPA care workers have been employed at 808 facilities in the past. As of January 1, 2019, there are 3,165 EPA care workers employed at 677 facilities. The main receiving facilities include special nursing homes and long-term care health facilities. Additionally, there are cases where foreigners study at Japanese care worker training schools to obtain the qualification of care worker and work at Japanese care facilities. The number of international students enrolled has increased, with 257 in fiscal year 2016, 591 in fiscal year 2017, and 1,142 in fiscal year 2018. Furthermore, as of the end of December 2018, there were 1,516 applications for the technical intern training program in the care sector, of which 946 have been certified, and the technical interns are entering the country sequentially.

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