Japan may ease visa rules for foreign nurses, dentists

TOKYO – Japan may lift work visa restrictions for foreign nurses and dentists, to help care for its fast-ageing and shrinking population, the government said Monday.

The immigration bureau is considering a plan to abolish visa limits for hundreds of nurses from the Philippines and Indonesia that currently restrict them to working in Japan for only seven years.

A bureau official said it may also soon invite nurses from other countries.

The changes may come as early as this month and as soon as the bureau formally endorses a new five-year policy plan, the official said.

“We are considering abolishing the limitation,” he said. “As we are facing an era with a shrinking population, it is important to accept fresh blood from other Asian countries, which are growing rapidly.”

Japan may also lift a six-year work limit for foreign dentists after it already did so for overseas medical doctors in 2006, to ease a shortage, said the official.

Japan’s population fell by about 75,000 in 2009, the biggest drop since World War II, while the country had a record 28.98 million people aged 65 or over last year, according to latest government data.

According to the immigration plan, Japan would also consider accepting foreigners who graduate from Japanese universities and other institutions with national nursing and other relevant qualifications.

The number of foreign workers in Japan has reached a record 1.92 million but still accounts for only 1.5 percent of the population, often described as the world’s most homogeneous. –Agence France-Presse