Viet Nam now ranks second in the number of employees working in Japan, according to the latest statistics of Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Vietnamese nurses are trained before going to work in Japan (Photo: VNA)

As of October 2019, more than 1.6 million foreigners worked in Japan, a year-on-year rise of 13.6 percent, the highest level since 2008.

China topped the list with 418,327 workers, followed by Viet Nam with 401.326 and the Philippines 179,685.

The main reason for this increase is that recently the Japanese Government has relaxed its visa policy to attract more foreign workers to address labour shortage due to rapid aging population.

Many workers from developing countries have come to Japan to work under the technical intern trainee programme.

According to the immigration and residence administration department of the Japan Ministry of Justice, in 2019, there were 189,000 foreign technical trainees in the country, an increase of 26 percent over the previous year.

(Source: VNA)