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Japan to allow foreigners to engage in home care services

Under the plan, aimed at expanding the scope of jobs available to such personnel and easing labor shortages in the sector, nursing offices that hire such foreign staff will be obliged to provide them with necessary training programs. (AFP)
Under the plan, aimed at expanding the scope of jobs available to such personnel and easing labor shortages in the sector, nursing offices that hire such foreign staff will be obliged to provide them with necessary training programs. (AFP)
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22 Mar 2024 10:03:18 GMT9
22 Mar 2024 10:03:18 GMT9

TOKYO: Japan’s welfare ministry proposed to an expert panel Friday a plan to conditionally allow foreigners to engage in home care services for the elderly.

Under the plan, aimed at expanding the scope of jobs available to such personnel and easing labor shortages in the sector, nursing offices that hire such foreign staff will be obliged to provide them with necessary training programs.

Currently, foreign technical intern trainees and foreign workers with so-called specified skills are allowed to work at care facilities in the country. They are banned from engaging in home help services to provider one-on-one assistance to users, however, due to concerns about their communication skills in Japanese.

The ministry will finalize the plan at a future meeting of the panel, hoping to lift the ban as early as fiscal 2024, starting in April.

Personnel shortages among home-visit nursing care service providers are particularly serious, with the ratio of effective job openings to seekers standing at 15.53 in fiscal 2022, according to the ministry. The home care worker population is also aging.

The ministry put forward the plan to allow foreign workers to provide home-visit nursing care on condition that training programs are provided on communication skills and Japanese lifestyles, that dispatched foreign workers are accompanied by people involved in such services for a certain period, and that guidelines are created to tackle harassment by service users.

Foreigners will be allowed to engage in home-visit bathing services provided by multiple workers if the necessary training is provided, according to the proposal.

Nursing offices will be asked to give careful explanations to users and their families when they dispatch foreign workers. A harassment consultation service will be provided in the native language of foreign personnel.

JIJI Press

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