More Japanese firms reach India to source manpower for hospitality, caregiving, food Processing, and restaurant services

NEW DELHI/TOKYO: As Japan stares at a shortage of 6.44 million workers by the year 2030, it has started to look towards India, and more and more Japanese companies are now visiting India to source skilled manpower under TITP/SSW programs from here in various fields, especially in hospitality (SHUKUHAKU), care-worker (KAIGO), food Processing Industry (SOUZAI), and restaurant service (INSHOKU).

Recently, a delegation of Yoshikawa Logistics Group company Green Food Service Co. Ltd. Led by Kazuo Shimahara visited AJU Japanese Hotel in Gurugram to interview over two dozen potential candidates for its food processing facilities as well as for hospitality or housekeeping sector. Nihon Edutech, a sending organisation for Specified Skill Workers (SSW) & Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) offers Japanese language, cultural etiquette, technical training to the skilled workers to place them in Japan facilitated this interaction. Nihon Edutech and the AJU group of hotels have joined hands to take the TITP/SSW program forward. As per the arrangement, the candidates would be provided practical training at the various hotel locations of AJU hotels.

While narrating the big picture story Kazuo Shimahara of Green Food Service Co. Ltd. that is into the business of mechanized processing of fish, meat, etc has 630 employees, and 230 of which are foreigners but no Indians, said, “According to a joint survey by Persol Research and Consulting and Chuo University, Japan will face a shortage of 6.44 million workers in 2030. Till now Japan relied on manpower from China, Vietnam, and other country including Nepal but not much on India. But off late the trend is changing, and Japan has started to look towards India.”

In Green Food Service, most of the foreign employees are from Vietnam, and many are from Nepal also. Some of the Indian students also work there on part-time basis but it is a very small number.

“Now we have come to India and also Nepal to look for Indian skilled manpower as the number of Vietnamese in Japan is coming down. Green Food Service has the nice experience of Nepal as it already had 40 people from there, and now it is looking forward to India where it finds people intelligent and hard working too. Nepal is fine but the population there is not big, and therefore Indian can give us the scale and the numbers.”

The demand for foreign workers in Japan especially in the hospitality sector is increasing because of the forthcoming World Expo scheduled to be held in Osaka in 2025.

Sougata Roy Choudhury, Executive director, CII said that because of the aging population and other factors Japan required millions of skilled manpower. “From India only about 500 Indians have been placed in Japan and there lies a huge opportunity for Indian youths. Japan is looking for more manpower from India than other countries like Vietnam and China, as India offers a large number and good quality of talent.

While reasoning the presence of more noon-Indian workers in Japan, Krishnan Narayan, Founder, Nihon Edutech, said that the countries like China and Vietnam conducted sales and promotion exercise to push their workers into Japan whereas India lacked behind on this front.

As regards interaction with Indian candidates at AJU Hotel, Shimahara said that his team found some of them could speak Japanese too with a very high level of proficiency and they could potentially work in Japan.

Prakash Yadav, Founder and managing director, AJU Group of Hotels said, “Here at our  hotel facilities, we together with Nihon Edutech will be conducting practical training for the candidates under the patronage of CII, to make these candidates the best choice for the employers in Japan. Nihon Edutech will provide languages and other behaviorial related training to these candidates.”