How Japan wants to prevent a shortage of skilled workers

Japan is a pioneer in labor shortages. The population has been shrinking at an increasing pace for more than ten years. Society currently loses around 600,000 people every year. Soon there will be a million. The economy notices this. As in other Asian countries, finding workers is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in craft and industrial professions.

However, when it comes to tackling the problem, Japan has a major advantage over its neighbors South Korea, Taiwan and China: the country is Asia’s oldest industrial nation. Japanese expert Yoshisuke Kumano from the University of Miyagi believes that Japan’s industrial companies still have “great potential” to secure young talent for factories and research laboratories.

At first glance, his opinion may seem surprising. In international comparisons, Japan is not in the top group for graduates of natural sciences, mathematics and engineering studies. According to a study by the American Georgetown University, the proportion was only 19 percent in 2020, compared to 20 percent in the USA, 36 percent in Germany and 41 percent in China.

But Kumano, who has been building and researching technical training for decades, sees Japan’s advantage in the fact that in the 150 years since it began its industrialization, the country has built solid structures for vocational training for all skill levels that have only a short tradition in other Asian countries.

Established structures and more money

In addition, under the slogan “Society 5.0”, the government has been trying increasingly since 2016 to make so-called Stem training, i.e. those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, more popular with funding programs. The programs were increased in 2021. For example, the government set up a 10 trillion yen (57 billion francs) fund to support universities.

The activities are slowly paying off. Even in the current smartphone generations, the proportion of students at vocational colleges has remained stable at around a quarter of the students. At some universities, the number of Stem students is even increasing, says Kuwano. And in order to narrow the remaining gaps, the government is also rolling out the red carpet in vocational training for foreign young people.

Starting this year, anyone who graduates from a technical college will receive the same work visas as university graduates. The government wants to train an additional 3,000 foreign skilled workers in Japan each year and integrate them into the labor market.

In addition, Japan wants to specifically attract low-skilled workers alongside highly qualified specialists, but with a twist. These visas are temporary and do not allow family reunification. However, anyone who acquires additional qualifications and passes language tests should be able to convert their temporary into longer-term residence permits in the future.

How Japan trains its young technology talent

What makes vocational and stem education attractive in Japan is the long tradition in what Japanese call monozukuri, making things. Permanent positions in large companies are still considered desirable and the pay is good. In addition, even vocational and technical colleges offer direct channels to companies, so that almost all graduates can get a job.

Another point is the early focus on mathematics and manual skills as well as a differentiation of school and university training. From primary school onwards, a lot of emphasis is placed on mathematics. There are also two hours per week of woodworking and metalworking courses. Programming is now also part of the primary school program to train young minds for the jobs of the digital future.

The result: In the most recent global comparison of student skills, the Pisa test, Japan ranked second behind Singapore in math and science. And there was another point that distinguished Japan: In contrast to many Western countries, the result did not collapse during the corona pandemic, but rather improved. The Japanese government only closed schools for two months at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, but not again afterwards.

At the latest in secondary schools, students can choose different branches. Basically, all children in Japan go to school for twelve years, from elementary school to middle school to high school. Instead of a division into high school and secondary school, there is an unofficial ranking of schools that screen out their clientele through tough entrance tests.

Less good students can enroll in vocational high schools. But there are also elite schools focused on Stem education. The highest level is the “Super Science” high schools. According to the Ministry of Education, there were 250 schools nationwide in 2023 that were allowed to hold this title.

For many graduates of technical colleges, their time at school is followed by a career. For middle and lower skilled workers and engineering careers, there are mostly two-year technical schools, the Senmon Gakko. The more ambitious minds aspire to universities.

Despite successes: the challenges are growing

However, the established basis does not mean that there are no challenges. The growing labor shortage is now not only slowing down companies’ expansion plans. In recent years, a growing number of small businesses have folded because they could no longer find enough staff.

Another challenge, according to Kumano, is strengthening Japan’s innovative strength. Japan has slipped in many innovation rankings in recent years. One reason for this is that Japan is “not that far along with systemic reforms”.

By this he means the change from the traditional, cramming-oriented education to the promotion of invention. Kumano estimates that Japan is ten years behind the USA in this regard. In addition, the efforts were not sufficient to completely compensate for the loss of students.

Supposedly strenuous and dirty jobs such as car mechanics are no longer as popular. The economy is therefore taking action to secure staff in the increasingly tough competition for talent. The car manufacturer Toyota, for example, operates technical colleges that are also open to foreign students.

Why dual training could make schools work

Foreign manufacturers are also becoming active. BMW and the commercial vehicle manufacturer Mitsubishi Fuso, which is part of Daimler Truck, introduced dual training based on the German model together with the German Chamber of Commerce in Japan in April.

In contrast to Japanese technical colleges, the trainees are hired by companies and receive money instead of having to pay school fees themselves. The companies also hope to be able to train young people in a more practical way and in new digital technologies.

This is also an advantage for companies: Japanese companies currently have to train graduates of technical colleges for another two to three years so that they can function as full-fledged workers. If the system proves successful, the chamber wants to expand the system to other areas such as chemistry and pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering and logistics in order to ensure that the participating companies also have a competitive advantage in the labor market.

Stem students continue to be a major challenge. Among the countries in the OECD, an organization of 38 traditional industrialized countries, the proportion of women in scientific subjects is lowest in Japan at 27 percent. The OECD average was 52 percent.

In Japan, the proportion of women in engineering subjects was only 16 percent, ten percentage points below the OECD average. But the gap also represents another opportunity: Japan has more room than other countries to alleviate the growing labor shortage by having more women in stem fields.