Japan, South Korea and Taiwan spent decades treating immigration as something other countries did. Demography has ended the argument. Japan and South Korea are approaching a position where fewer than two working-age people support each person over 65, and all three are now expanding routes for foreign labour.

Japan’s rebuild

Japan’s system has been rebuilt in stages. The Specified Skilled Worker visa, introduced in 2019, opened designated sectors including nursing care, hospitality and construction to foreign workers on a defined pathway. More significantly, the government is replacing the long-criticised Technical Intern Training Programme with a new Employment for Skill Development scheme from 2027.

The old programme was nominally a transfer of skills to developing countries. In practice it supplied labour to sectors that could not recruit domestically, under conditions that drew sustained criticism, including from Japan’s own advisory bodies.

The problem the reform has not solved

Recruitment debt remains the structural flaw. Many workers borrow to cover fees charged by brokers and recruiters in their home countries, arriving with obligations that make leaving an abusive employer financially impossible. Reporting in March 2026 on the illegal employment of workers who had absconded from their placements illustrated how the pressure plays out.

This is where the issue stops being a social policy question and becomes a corporate one. Recruitment-fee liability now appears in supply chain due diligence frameworks and in the forced labour provisions of several major trading partners’ import regimes. A company that does not know what its labour supplier charged its workers has an exposure it cannot quantify.

The competitive dimension

Japan, Korea and Taiwan are increasingly competing for the same workers, from broadly the same source countries, and they are competing with Gulf states and Western economies facing similar shortages. Pay is only part of it. Pathways to permanent residence, family accompaniment rights and portability between employers all shape where workers choose to go, and all three destinations have historically been restrictive on each.

For employers, this means labour supply cannot be assumed. Workforce planning in North Asian operations now needs to model recruitment lead times and attrition against alternative destinations, not just against local wage benchmarks.

Summary

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are expanding foreign worker schemes as their dependency ratios deteriorate, with Japan replacing its Technical Intern Training Programme with the Employment for Skill Development scheme from 2027. Recruitment-fee debt bondage remains unresolved and is migrating from a labour rights concern into a supply chain compliance exposure. Employers should audit recruitment practices in their labour supply chains and treat access to workers as a competitive variable rather than a given.