Ajsa International Recruiters -

Japan put into effect the Revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act on April 1, 2019, to address the increasingly serious labour shortage. The country has begun accepting non-Japanese workers under a new status of residence called the Specified Skilled Worker. There are currently 12 categories of workers in SSWP which include nursing care; building cleaning management; manufacturing industry (by the merger of machine parts & tooling industries; industrial machinery industry; electric, electronics and information industries in May 2022); construction industry; shipbuilding and ship machinery industry; automobile repair and maintenance; aviation industry; accommodation industry; agriculture; fishery & aquaculture industry; manufacture of food and beverages; and food service industry.
Those who can work in Japan as an SSW must be over 18 years old in good health, and have the necessary occupational skills and Japanese language ability to work immediately without receiving any particular training. Skills and Japanese proficiency will be confirmed by a unified test conducted by Japan. In principle, you can work for up to 5 years in total, but you cannot bring your family. In addition, the major difference from other status of residence to work in Japan is a support system. You can receive a wide range of support for life and work from your employer while you are in Japan, from the time you arrive to leave for your home country. For the recruitment of Specified Skilled Workers, the recruiting agencies do not require to be listed as “sending organisations”.
Between 2021 and 2022, a few changes were made to the Specified Skilled Workers (SSW) Program, a status of Residence newly created in 2019, initially allowing foreign workers to work in 14 industry fields. The application procedures for the SSW Program were amended in 2021 to merge three manufacturing fields (Machine parts and tooling; Industrial machinery; and Electric, electronics and information) into a single field. Therefore, the SSW Program is to be re-organised under 12 industry fields. As of May 2022, Japan has signed Memoranda of Co-operation related to the Status of Residence of SSW with 14 countries: the Philippines, Cambodia, Nepal, Myanmar, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Thailand, India, and Malaysia.