The amended immigration control law, enacted last December to open the door wider to workers from overseas to fill the domestic manpower shortage, takes effect in April. But with less than two months to go before the new program starts, the implementation of measures to provide various support for foreign workers, such as multilingual information on living in Japanese society, or concrete steps to ensure they have adequate working conditions and to prevent their concentration in big urban areas, remains slow. These measures are essential to introduce the program, in which the government expects to accept up to 345,000 workers in its first five years. The government needs to accelerate its efforts to take the necessary steps to prepare for welcoming the foreign workers.

In a major turnaround in the government's immigration policy, the amended law creates new visa statuses for workers who will fill simple labor positions in 14 designated sectors that are facing a manpower shortage. To help accept the workers in large numbers as members of the local communities in which they'll work, the government plans to set up about 100 centers in prefectures and municipalities across Japan that offer information and counseling about local life in 10 languages, such as English, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. How and when such centers will be launched, however, remains up in the air.

While the state intends to provide fiscal assistance for the local governments that run the centers, it is unclear, for example, whether all the relevant municipalities will be able to secure the necessary manpower, including interpreters who would answer workers' questions in multiple languages on a wide range of issues such as medical services.