Feb 04 (NHK) - Japan's labor ministry says the number of registered foreign workers in the country has hit a record high.
Employers reported a total of 1.72 million as of last October. The figure is up 4 percent from a year before, although the pace of increase fell 9.6 points.
Vietnamese workers were the largest group by nationality with 444,000. Chinese nationals numbered 420,000, and workers from the Philippines 185,000. Vietnamese topped the list for the first time.
Healthcare was the sector that hired at the fastest pace, seeing a 26.8-percent rise in the number of foreign employees compared to October 2019. The construction industry followed at 19 percent.
But hotels and restaurants employed 1.8 percent fewer than before. That was the sector's first decline since the government began obliging employers to report their foreign workforces in 2007.
The ministry says the data highlights how the impact of coronavirus pandemic varies greatly among industries.
