Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party's decision-making body has approved a bill to revise the immigration control law to increase the number of foreign workers from next April.
The LDP's General Council completed in-party procedures on Tuesday.
The revised law will create 2 new categories of working residence status.
Workers in the first category, with a certain level of skill, will be granted up to 5 years of residency status.
The second-category workers, with higher skill levels, will be able to reside longer, and can be accompanied by family members.
Residence status for workers is currently limited to highly skilled personnel such as university professors. Starting next April, the status will be expanded to other fields.
The Justice Ministry says skilled foreign workers are sought by 14 industries including nursing, construction, agriculture and services.
During the discussion, LDP lawmakers said the government must determine as soon as possible how many foreign workers each industry needs.
The government says the new status will be granted only in industries with labor shortages, and that the numbers of workers will be decided soon.
Source: ANNnewsCH
