Japan to reopen foreign worker recruitment in three sectors

Japan's government plans to reopen foreign worker recruitment for cooking and food service jobs at hospitals, welfare institutions and schools from April 2027. The plan, presented to an expert panel on Monday, is aimed to be passed by the Cabinet in December.

Recruitment had been halted after the number of specified skilled workers in the restaurant sector reached close to the limit of about 50,000 starting this April. Such food service jobs will now be moved out of the restaurant category and placed under the food and beverage production sector.

The ceiling for the food and beverage production sector is about 133,500, of which around 76 percent had been filled by July. In the elderly care sector, the government plans to raise the ceiling by about 20,000 to 146,900.

The government plans to keep the overall ceiling for foreign workers at about 1,231,900 by the end of fiscal year 2028. This includes about 825,000 workers under the specified skilled worker permit and about 406,000 under the new skills development employment program. These figures represent maximum ceilings, not a guaranteed number of workers to be recruited.

According to Nepal Rastra Bank, the buying rate for 10 Japanese yen today is NPR 9.60.