Oizumi Depends on Foreign Workers as Hiring Costs Rise and Local Applicants Dwindle

A factory town needs workers it can no longer find locally

At Yuzawa AI, an equipment maker in Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, about two thirds of employees are now foreigners. At the local Ainohana nursing home, foreign workers account for eleven of thirty five care staff. Across the compact manufacturing town, employers describe the same pressure: recruiting people from abroad costs more each year, yet Japanese applicants are too scarce to fill essential jobs.

As of November 19, 2025, Oizumi's reliance on foreign labor reaches from assembly lines and warehouses to rooms where elderly residents need daily care. About one in five town residents is non Japanese. Workers from the Philippines, Vietnam and Brazil, alongside people from Myanmar, Indonesia and China, cover shifts that businesses say they would otherwise struggle to staff.

Factories that once recruited through nearby high schools and job fairs now find few Japanese candidates for work described as tough, dirty and dangerous. Employers say foreign staff bring reliability and a willingness to stay late when orders suddenly increase. For small and medium sized firms, those extra hours can determine whether a shipment reaches a customer on time or a client takes its business elsewhere.

Higher wages, recruitment fees, housing assistance and training expenses are making that dependence more costly. Oizumi's experience shows how a labor shortage changes the decisions businesses must make: they are paying more to secure staff while relying more heavily on workers recruited beyond Japan.

How Oizumi became a destination for foreign workers

Oizumi developed its reputation as a factory town in the late twentieth century. A change in immigration rules in 1990 allowed people of Japanese descent to work in Japan, bringing an early influx of Brazilian residents. Communities grew around factories making auto parts and electronics, as well as food processing plants.

Brazilian food appeared in local shops, schools introduced language support and municipal offices opened desks serving residents in Portuguese. Those changes helped create a town accustomed to employing people from overseas. Established social networks now help newcomers find their footing more quickly, making recruitment easier for businesses.

Japan's shrinking and aging population has made that experience increasingly relevant. Businesses across the country struggle to fill shifts, and Oizumi faces the same shortage. Government counts show that foreign workers have passed two million, with their numbers continuing to grow at a double digit pace in recent years. Foreign residents nationwide have risen to well over three million.

Foreign workers and foreign residents describe different groups. The worker count concerns people in employment, while the resident count concerns people living in Japan. In Oizumi, the national growth is visible in neighborhoods where foreign residents make up roughly a fifth of the population and factories regularly recruit across borders.

The main stages of the town's changing workforce follow a longer national shift:

• In the late twentieth century, Oizumi built its reputation as a manufacturing town.
• In 1990, an immigration rule change allowed people of Japanese descent to work in Japan, helping bring Brazilian residents to Oizumi.
• Over the past few years, work style reforms introduced legal limits on overtime in many sectors, requiring employers to plan staffing more carefully.
• By November 19, 2025, foreign workers nationwide had exceeded two million and foreign residents had climbed to well over three million.

Why hiring costs keep climbing

Oizumi employers say the cost of recruiting, training and retaining foreign staff is rising. Agency fees are one expense. Housing support, transportation allowances and language classes add others. These costs sit alongside wages, making the expense of keeping a position filled greater than the hourly pay alone.

Japan's national average hourly minimum wage has passed 1,000 yen, while minimum rates set by prefectures have been moving toward that level or beyond it. Higher wage floors increase labor costs, and employers must still provide the support needed to attract workers and keep them in their jobs.

Local managers say they have little choice because Japanese applicants are particularly scarce for physically demanding work. Tomoaki Yuzawa, president of equipment maker Yuzawa AI, said his company had once employed mostly Japanese workers. Foreigners now make up about two thirds of its workforce, including many technical trainees from the Philippines and Vietnam.

Yuzawa described the change as a response to staffing needs rather than a recruitment strategy the company had originally intended to pursue:

We did not set out to hire more foreigners. We had to. Orders surge, machines cannot sit idle, and we need people who show up and accept overtime when it is crunch time.

His explanation connects recruitment directly to production. Machines need operators, orders need processing and delivery promises need enough staff to fulfill them. A shortage of applicants therefore becomes a business problem even when a company has work waiting to be done.

Overtime helps factories meet urgent orders

Manufacturing remains the largest single destination for foreign workers in Japan, employing hundreds of thousands in auto parts, food processing and electronics. Around Oizumi, foreign employees operate molding machines, assemble components, prepare shipments and help cover peaks in demand.

Factory managers describe work that can be physically demanding and messy. Employees who complete training, remain with the company and develop skills quickly become valuable to production. When a customer brings a deadline forward or a batch must leave at midnight, employers say foreign workers are often willing to extend their hours.

One local manufacturer with roughly two hundred employees said Japanese staff had become less willing to work overtime, leaving foreign colleagues to cover most extra shifts. The manager said the company recruited across nationalities because those workers accepted the hours it needed, rather than to reduce wages.

Many younger Japanese workers place greater weight on the balance between work and personal life and are more likely to decline late shifts. Employers say some foreign staff request extra hours to increase their income, especially when night work or weekend shifts carry a clear pay premium.

Work style reforms have also introduced legal caps on overtime in many sectors. Employers must plan schedules within those limits while responding to changing orders. The combination of few local applicants and different preferences about working extra hours helps explain why dependence on foreign staff continues even as the cost per worker rises.

Care homes face an even tighter labor market

At Ainohana, eleven of thirty five care staff are foreigners, or about 31 percent of the team. They push wheelchairs, serve meals and speak with elderly residents in Japanese learned on the job. The facility began recruiting more foreign workers a few years ago because too few Japanese applicants were arriving to cover basic care needs.

Daisuke Kima, Ainohana's deputy chief facility manager, described the staffing shortage and said foreign colleagues receive the same wages as Japanese employees:

There is a real shortage of care workers. Foreign colleagues are a great help, and we pay the same wages as we do Japanese staff.

Caregiving requires both practical help and communication that residents can understand. Some elderly people struggle with unfamiliar accents or speech delivered too quickly. Foreign employees can also find paperwork and medical terminology difficult, even when they are comfortable with everyday conversation.

Mixed teams help share those responsibilities. Japanese caregivers often handle administrative tasks while foreign colleagues concentrate on direct care. Facilities also invest in language training at work, because communication is part of the service residents need every day.

The ratio of job openings to applicants in caregiving is close to four to one, well above the ratio for all occupations. Put simply, there are nearly four advertised care jobs for each applicant. That shortage pushes facilities to widen recruitment while helping new employees build the language skills needed for the job.

Workers follow demand across regions

A staffing firm in Oizumi recently received a request from Aomori Prefecture for temporary work transporting apples at high wages. Only one Japanese applicant responded, while foreign residents were willing to travel for the pay and overtime.

The request illustrates competition for workers beyond Oizumi's factories. Farms, warehouses and other businesses need people who can take up work when demand rises. Employers offering housing, transportation and regular opportunities for overtime have an advantage in attracting them.

Visa status also affects the choices workers can make. Many arrive through the technical intern program, which is intended to transfer skills but often serves as an entry route into factory employment. Others move into Specified Skilled Worker status, a framework for industries facing labor shortages.

Specified Skilled Worker status allows greater job mobility and, in some cases, a longer stay. That gives workers more scope to seek better pay or conditions in another prefecture. For employers, it creates a retention problem when someone leaves after the company has invested in training.

Some managers respond with guaranteed shift premiums, language classes and help for families. Those measures add to employment costs, but they also give workers practical reasons to remain. Recruitment and retention are linked: filling a vacancy does not finish the task if a trained employee soon finds a more attractive job elsewhere.

The weak yen is also described as a factor in decisions to move, alongside the attraction of earnings sent home and rising living costs in Japan. Workers considering a job must weigh what they can earn, what they will spend locally and what they hope to send to their families.

Language support has become everyday municipal work

Oizumi's shops and services reflect the communities that have formed around its workplaces. Supermarkets sell Brazilian cuts of meat and spices used in Southeast Asian cooking. Restaurants display menus in Japanese and Portuguese, while signs in several languages help residents find clinics, day care centers and libraries.

Town offices and schools provide language classes, cultural orientation and consultation desks. Residents can seek help with housing, health insurance and taxes. These services make settling in more manageable for newcomers and help employers recruit people who need to navigate daily life as well as a new job.

Local officials treat integration as essential municipal work. Classroom language support helps children follow lessons and reduces dropouts. Community events bring established residents and newcomers together, creating contact beyond the workplace.

Police and town hall staff also meet factory managers and neighborhood associations to address misunderstandings over noise, waste disposal and traffic. These are practical matters that affect people living near one another, regardless of where they were born.

Oizumi's approach depends on repeated, ordinary work: helping a family understand a form, supporting a child in class or resolving a disagreement over rubbish collection. Those routines build trust and help the town cope as its population ages.

Residents debate the pace and cost of change

Oizumi's dependence on foreign workers has not removed disagreement about how quickly the foreign population should grow or how large it should become. Some voices warn that using a shared administrative language other than Japanese could confuse older residents.

Others question who would pay for welfare when foreign residents lose employment or grow old. These concerns connect recruitment today with the longer responsibilities of a town where workers and their families may become established residents.

Many local leaders argue that factories would close and shops would shut without foreign workers. Fewer businesses and residents would mean a smaller tax base, leaving less money for services used by everyone. Their case links support for newcomers to keeping the town's economy functioning.

Foreign residents are already part of Oizumi's daily life. Most conflicts are handled through practical solutions rather than broad policy changes, including language assistance, consultation and cooperation among employers, officials and neighborhood groups.

National rules shape local staffing decisions

Japan has opened more routes for foreign workers in response to labor shortages. A major immigration policy change created a path for manual workers in fourteen sectors with persistent staffing gaps, including caregiving, construction, food services and agriculture.

Government estimates put potential arrivals in the hundreds of thousands over several years, with caregiving expected to accept the largest share. This policy shift is one reason foreign worker numbers have reached new highs and communities beyond the largest cities have seen their foreign populations grow.

In Tokyo, debate centers on balancing recruitment with social stability. Ministries are considering changes to visa categories, support for language learning and ways to distribute workers more evenly across regions. Some politicians have proposed caps or regional quotas.

Local governments dependent on foreign labor warn that sharp limits would worsen shortages as their elderly populations expand. Employers need predictable rules for staffing, while workers want fair treatment and opportunities to advance. The proposals described here have no stated decision date.

Clear rights, access to language training and consistent enforcement of labor standards would help employers and employees and reduce frequent departures. For Oizumi, national policy is tied to immediate needs: enough people to operate factory machinery, prepare deliveries and care for residents, at a cost businesses and facilities can sustain.

What to Know

• About one in five Oizumi residents is non Japanese, and employers increasingly depend on foreign workers to fill factory and care jobs.
• Foreigners account for about two thirds of employees at Yuzawa AI and eleven of thirty five care staff at Ainohana.
• Hiring costs are rising through wages, agency fees, housing support, transportation and language training.
• Manufacturing is Japan's largest employer of foreign workers, with hundreds of thousands working in the sector.
• Employers say foreign staff often accept overtime that helps factories meet urgent delivery schedules.
• Caregiving has nearly four job openings for each applicant, making recruitment especially difficult.
• Worker mobility creates competition between regions and industries, while employers seek to retain staff through pay premiums and practical support.
• Oizumi provides multilingual services, classroom assistance and community consultation as national debate continues over recruitment and immigration rules.