Japanese Are Loath To Rebuild Workforce Through Immigration

Politicians Avoid Issue They See as Toxic

TOKYO, May 29 -- When threatened by soaring oil prices in the 1970s, Japan's response was swift, smart and successful.

It transformed itself into the most efficient user of energy in the developed world, thanks to government leadership, engineering skill and a public that embraced conservation.

Now Japan faces a much more fundamental threat to its future -- demographic decline that experts say will delete 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.

Yet the all-hands-on-deck response that quelled the oil shock is conspicuously missing from Japan's policies for a disappearing population.

"Unfortunately, the people do not share a sense of crisis," said Masakazu Toyoda, a vice minister at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. "Yes, we deserve some kind of criticism."

Inside the government, there is growing agreement that Japan can head off disastrous population decline by significantly increasing immigration.

Japan has the world's highest proportion of people older than 65 and the world's smallest proportion of children younger than 15. Without immigration in substantial numbers, it will soon run perilously low on people of working age.

Yet among highly developed countries, Japan has always ranked near the bottom in the percentage of foreign-born residents. In the United States, about 12 percent are foreign-born; in Japan, just 1.6 percent. Most immigrants here are from Asia or South America. The largest number come from Korea (about 600,000 people), followed by China and Brazil. The Brazilians are mostly of mixed Japanese descent.

Yet there is little or no political will here to persuade or prepare the public to accept a sizable influx of foreigners.

Based on a round of interviews with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and several other senior government officials and politicians, the issue is too politically toxic for extensive public discussion.

"We need to work out policy in order to actively accept increasing numbers of immigrants," Fukuda said, adding that his advisers are researching and discussing the issue.

But as soon he explained the need for immigrants, Fukuda, whose approval ratings are an anemic 24 percent, said he had to remain cautious on the issue.