Foreign Workers in Japan: What the 2026 MHLW Data Shows

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) counted 2,571,037 covered foreign workers in employer notifications at the end of October 2025. That was an 11.7% year-over-year increase and the highest total since notification became mandatory in 2007.

A separate survey, also published in 2026, describes employment conditions at a narrower group of workplaces as of September 2025. Neither source tells you that a job is open, that an employer will support a residence procedure, or that you qualify to work in Japan.

Sources checked: September 25, 2026. These are 2026 releases about September and October 2025 reference points, not live 2026 vacancy or wage data.

How to use this article: This is an interpretation of official national data, not immigration, employment, labor, legal, salary, tax, financial, or career advice.

Two Datasets, Two Different Questions

Source	Reference point	Population/method	Best use	Do not use it to claim
Employer-notification summary, released January 30, 2026	End of October 2025	Employer notifications covering 2,571,037 foreign workers at 371,215 establishments; excludes special permanent residents and people with Diplomat or Official status	The scale and broad composition of employment covered by this administrative system	Openings, working conditions, unique employers seeking overseas applicants, employer support, or applicant odds
Foreign Employment Conditions Survey, released August 31, 2026	Conditions on September 30, 2025; fieldwork in October–November 2025	A stratified sample with weighted estimates, covering establishments with at least five employment-insurance insured people and at least one foreign worker, plus sampled foreign regular workers at those establishments	Defined measures of employment conditions, employer responses, recruitment routes, and worker responses	A census of every foreign worker, a live job-market forecast, or the experience of a particular applicant or workplace

Read the Survey Boundary Before the Results

MHLW sampled 9,016 establishments and 45,198 workers. It received valid responses from 3,919 establishments and 14,248 workers, for valid response rates of 43.5% and 31.5%. It then applied restoration weights based on industry, establishment size, and foreign-worker size. Those details come from the survey's full methodology and definitions.

In this survey, a “foreign regular worker” means a covered foreign worker employed indefinitely or for at least one month. The survey excludes special permanent residents and people with Diplomat or Official status, and its establishment-size rule leaves some workplaces outside its population.

The worker survey was not offered in every respondent's first language. Paper responses used Japanese and English; online responses also offered Chinese, Vietnamese, and Portuguese. MHLW does not quantify what effect that had, so it is a limitation—not a basis for guessing the direction of bias.

The survey's estimated population and the notification total come from different populations and methods. They should not be added together or expected to match.

Foreign Employment Reached a Record—Across Many Status Groups

The notification release reports both 2,571,037 covered workers, up 11.7%, and 371,215 establishments, up 8.5%. Those are administrative totals, not a count of new hires or companies currently recruiting.

MHLW divides the worker total into broad residence-status groupings:

• professional or technical statuses;
• status-based categories such as permanent resident and spouse categories;
• technical intern training;
• permission to work outside the activity covered by a person's main status; and
• designated activities.

The largest grouping, “professional or technical,” contained 865,588 people, up 20.4% year over year. That label is easy to misread. It combines many statuses—including Specified Skilled Worker—and is not synonymous with technology jobs, white-collar work, or jobs offering immigration support. The ISA status-of-residence hub shows why authorized activities must be checked status by status. The Specified Skilled Worker guide covers that route's separate fields, duties, tests, contracts, support, and country procedures.

Growth in a statistical grouping therefore says nothing by itself about demand in your occupation or whether your duties and background fit a status of residence.

Why Surveyed Employers Said They Hired Foreign Workers

The conditions survey asked establishments already employing foreign workers why they did so and what challenges they saw. Both questions allowed multiple responses, so the percentages do not sum to 100%.

The leading reasons were:

• address or ease labor shortages: 68.2%;
• expect performance equal to or greater than Japanese workers: 56.2%;
• improve internationalization or diversity: 18.1%; and
• use knowledge or skills not held by Japanese workers: 14.1%.

The leading employer-reported challenges were:

• communication due to Japanese-language ability: 46.2%;
• administrative burden of residence-status applications: 24.8%;
• friction attributed to differences in culture, values, or daily customs: 22.4%; and
• cost of arranging the living environment: 21.9%.

These are findings from surveyed establishments, not the share of all Japanese employers hiring now. The challenges are employer perceptions, not objective measures of worker ability. In particular, 46.2% does not establish one Japanese-language threshold for every job.

The practical reading is limited: labor shortages were a common reason among workplaces that already employed foreign workers, while employers also reported process and workplace challenges. You still need a real vacancy, duties that fit, and an employer prepared for the actual hiring process.

What the Pay and Hours Numbers Mean

MHLW reports “monthly cash earnings paid under predetermined conditions” for September 2025. The measure includes overtime pay. The table below covers general workers, meaning workers who do not meet the survey's short-time-worker definition.

Survey grouping	Monthly cash earnings	Scheduled hours actually worked	Excess hours actually worked
All foreign general workers	JPY 292,400	158.7	17.6
Professional or technical	JPY 306,500	159.4	16.4
Specified Skilled Worker subset	JPY 254,100	163.1	20.3
Technical intern training	JPY 213,500	165.2	21.4
Status-based grouping	JPY 347,200	151.0	15.8

These survey aggregates are not take-home pay, advertised salaries, starting salaries, or personal benchmarks. They combine unlike occupations, ages, locations, employers, tenure, hours, and other characteristics. A difference between rows does not show that a residence status caused a pay difference.

For the same reason, the national table cannot answer what a software engineer, teacher, care worker, hotel employee, or other individual should expect. Occupation- and team-specific research remains necessary; the women software engineers in Japan article shows the narrower questions needed for one field.

How Respondents Found Their Current Jobs

Recruitment routes differed sharply by where respondents lived before entering their current job.

• Among respondents previously living in Japan, the leading routes were a friend or acquaintance (37.8%), a job advertisement including online listings (19.1%), and a private placement company in Japan (10.6%).
• Among respondents previously living outside Japan, 82.0% reported using an introduction company, individual, or similar route. Within that 82.0% group, 41.2% named an origin-country placement company or individual.

The second figure has a nested denominator: 41.2% is not a share of every surveyed worker. These recruitment-route findings describe how respondents reached their current jobs; they do not rank channels for safety, quality, or effectiveness.

Use the overseas job-search guide to test whether an opening accepts overseas applicants, what an employer means by “sponsorship,” and how to verify an employer or intermediary.

What Workers Reported Going Wrong

Across the weighted worker survey, 10.0% reported a problem or difficulty in their current job, 88.5% reported none, and 1.4% was unknown. Among the 10.0% reporting a problem, the leading named multiple-response items included:

• high placement-company or sending-organization fees: 22.2%;
• not knowing where to seek advice: 15.8%; and
• being asked for higher Japanese ability than explained beforehand: 11.9%.

These problem-type percentages apply only within the group that reported a problem. They are not percentages of all foreign workers in Japan—or even of every worker in the survey's population.

If you have a working-condition concern, use MHLW's current foreign-language labor consultation routes. Check the live page rather than relying on copied schedules or phone details.

What These Numbers Cannot Predict for You

Neither release can establish:

• how many jobs are open now, including how many accept overseas applicants;
• whether an employer will support a Certificate of Eligibility or another residence procedure;
• whether your duties, education, experience, and other circumstances fit a status of residence;
• salary for one occupation, city, seniority level, employer, or candidate;
• working conditions at a named workplace;
• demand specifically in technology, English teaching, hospitality, care, or another sector without a matching source table and denominator;
• your hiring probability, immigration approval odds, or future workforce growth; or
• the experience of every foreign worker or resident in Japan.

The figures describe defined populations at two points in 2025. They provide context, not causation or a forecast.

Use the Data as Context, Then Test Your Case

1. Name the actual duties and possible status family. Do not infer work permission from a job title or one MHLW statistical grouping. If the work may fall within a designated field, check the separate Specified Skilled Worker requirements.
2. Confirm the role is genuinely open to you. The overseas job-search guide helps you check location, overseas applications, current work permission, and what immigration support the employer will actually provide.
3. Verify the employer and every intermediary. Ask who performs each step, who charges each fee, and where the written terms appear.
4. Get the role and conditions in writing. Use the job-application document guide for current forms and record consistency, then the job-interview guide to ask about duties, conditions, and expectations.
5. Use an official help route when something is wrong. National statistics cannot resolve an individual labor or immigration problem.

The record employer-notification total is meaningful national context. It is not a shortcut around the role, employer, written conditions, or status-of-residence checks that decide whether one opportunity is realistic.

Official Sources and Definitions

• Scale and composition: MHLW's January 30, 2026 employer-notification release and detailed summary, both referring to the end of October 2025.
• Conditions and methodology: MHLW's August 31, 2026 survey release and detailed survey report, referring to September 30, 2025 conditions and October–November 2025 fieldwork.
• Authorized activities: ISA's current status-of-residence hub.
• Working-condition help: MHLW's live foreign-language consultation page.