Big Foreign Employment Opportunity For Youths: India To Supply Skilled Workers To Labour Strapped Japan

The union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved a memorandum of cooperation between India and Japan that would facilitate movement of skilled workers between both Asian countries, reports The Economic Times.

Under this framework, Indian workers will be granted a new status of residence ‘Specified Skilled Worker’ by the Japanese government.

“The idea is to enhance people-to-people contacts, foster mobility of workers and skilled professionals from India to Japan. Under this MOC, a joint working group will be set up to follow up the implementation of the memorandum of cooperation,” the cabinet statement said.

The government listed the 14 sectors that will benefit, they are nursing care, building cleaning, material processing, industrial machinery manufacturing, electric and electronic information related industry, construction, shipbuilding and ship-related industry, automobile maintenance, aviation, lodging, agriculture, fisheries, food and beverages manufacturing, and food service industry.

Japan will face a labour force shortage of 6.44 million people by 2030. Tokyo, capital of Japan, alone will be short of 1.33 million workers.

Thus the movement of skilled workers from India will help Japan in meeting the estimated labour shortages and also boost India’s remittance economy.

According to the World Bank, India is the largest recipient of remittances followed by China, Mexico, the Philippines and Egypt.

The Narendra Modi government is aiming to turn India into a leading supplier of skilled workers to the global market through its domestic skill training programmes like Skill India.