Labor shortages at elderly care facilities in quake-hit Ishikawa Prefecture have worsened since some staff quit because of the increased work burden, and many nursing care facilities in other parts of Japan are already short-staffed and cannot spare any workers. What can be done to alleviate the situation?

Don't make them work so hard and give them one month of paid holidays a year.

Bring in the thousands of Filipino and Indonesian care workers who want to work here.

Oh, yeah. The govt put up a ridiculously hard Japanese test with an over 90% fail rate so scratch that.

What can be done to alleviate the situation?

Now listen to me; call me deranged but I have this wild idea.

See, you say you have a labor shortage. And we have this "free market" where you exchange your time and labor for this thing "money".

Why not try offering more money?

It works some places.

It is such an obvious question.

There are lots of healthcare workers from other countries who are more than willing to take these jobs, but Japan needs to lower the bar (in the right places, of course) if it wants to fill in those gaps. It either keeps up its restrictions or lessens them. All we know is there are people in need of care and lesser people are taking care of them.

Is anyone aware of the certification required and the pay you will get? My American friend had a stroke and is now in an elderly facility. I visited and the workers are young and pleasant but he said some of them have already quit. It is a very hard job physically and mentally.

Go back in time 30 years and either increase immigration or start telling children it is the patriotic duty to go into elder care.

There are lots of Filipino healthcare workers (Indonesians are usually as cleaners etc...) but they tend to be high in demand across the world for the same reasons as Japan.

There are also lots of Indian healthcare workers who are less in demand currently but they are also less likely to emigrate.

The main solution is probably automation and outsourcing.

VillanovaToday 01:40 pm JST

The main solution is probably automation

People don't want to hook grandma up to a machine that will harm her just a soon as it does a job correctly.

@TaiwanIsNotChina

Well those type of people can be outsourced!

Pay people proper wages.

Im not sure where the root of the problem lies - on the part of the institution administration or due to governments poor funding and neglect of the issue.

In Australia last year the aged care industry was experiencing huge turnovers of staff and unable to attract anywhere near enough workers.

A 15% pay rise was implemented from July, which saw the lowest level workers hourly rate increase about $3.50.

This was part of a $11+billion govt funded package.

These pay increases are outside of the Annual Wage Reviews which saw a 5.6%+ rise across the board for all workers.

The Japan Govt needs to extract the digit and do what's necessary to kickstart an industry rife with problems and make committed long term 50 year plans.

Start by paying workers a realistic wage of at least ￥1,500 / hour.

Or watch it all go sideways real quick and there won't be a thing that could be done to stop the sli

I think the quote is misleading and suspect it is not entirely correct. It implies care workers have quit in "post-quake Ishikawa" due to "increased work burden", i.e., in the past two weeks.

Staff may have quit in recent years due to "increased work burden" but it is unlikely to be the only reason people have quit in the past two weeks. These people have had massive disruption to their lives and if anyone has quit in January 2024, it could be for many reasons. Most Ishikawa care workers will be Ishikawa locals.

Japan has to do something as this is the challenge of an aging society.

Boost pay, boost funding, boost immigrant workers...nah...wont happen

I've given up all hope this gov't can "solve" any problem.

I think humanoid robots will eventually be able to take over some of the care. Changing diapers, maybe changing bed linen, assisting with showers and baths, assisting in toilets, removing trash, and laundry services. I mean eventually. Just meal services would reduce the load considerably, and that is mostly doable today.

East Asian workers are not so different than Japanese. Maybe they would assimilate fairly easily. 2-3 generations and it would be difficult to tell except by their names.

Paying people more to do the job has been mentioned, and is obviously a good idea, but it won’t be enough by itself to solve it. Elderly care is honestly a pretty awful job to have to do - its extremely demanding both physically and emotionally and largely a thankless one (the end result is always that the people you care for die). In a tight labor market where people have other options available its no wonder so few want to work in the field.

Add on to that the problem of convincing people to do that horrible job in rural regions of Japan that most Japanese people are fleeing from already and its obvious that even big pay raises probably won’t be enough to entice enough people into it. And of course big raises aren’t in the cards anyway - the rapidly increasing elderly population coupled with the rapidly falling tax base of workers means there will be fewer funds per person rather than more available for the foreseeable future.

There really is no good solution to the problem available, except maybe more robots or something like that. Conditions for the elderly, especially in rural areas, are going to get worse and worse.

What can be done to alleviate the situation?

Immigration, better pay and better working conditions.