日本社会は人手不足を解消するために外国人労働者を受け入れているのか

抄録

Policy debates on the acceptance of foreign workers in Japan have long been framed around the idea of addressing labor shortages. Since the “open-door debate”, Kaikokuronso, of the late 1980’s, the discourse of labor shortages has functioned as the main justification for expanding the presence of foreign workers and became explicitly institutionalized with the introduction of the Specified Skilled Worker Program in 2019. However, this paper argues that such a framework obscures the actual function of foreign workers in Japan. Drawing on the case studies of Nikkeijin workers, it shows that foreign workers have been accepted not primarily to fill labor shortages, but to maintain a pool of surplus labor under conditions of semi-unemployment. Similar dynamics can be observed in the Technical Intern Training Program. As Asato (2023) argues, trainees are, like Nikkeijin workers, used not to compensate for labor shortages but to create a pool of surplus labor. Thus, labor shortage discourse conceals the structural realities of Japan’s foreign workers regime.