Player_Hatsu comments

*) Public announcements and educating the Japanese people how fatal it is for the Japanese economy without immigration (In reality it is not). Which the Japanese government isn't even trying.

Last year Shinzo Abe said in a Reuters news conference that Japan will replace humans with artificial intelligence, wireless sensors and automation (Which is actually happening in parts of Japan).

*) Spending more on making signs and other informative pieces foreign friendly, by having English and other languages such as Korean or Chinese. Which is rarely done and outside of Tokyo it is even rarer.

This is only done for places which are frequented by tourists. Tourist spots and tourist hotels.

*) Teaching cultural differences in schools and teaching languages such as Chinese or Korean for better understanding.

I am born to a Japanese father and a Chinese mother I lived in the States through out my child hood till I came back to Japan and attended a Japanese high school. I am surprised to see that Japanese high school students suck at English also my brother (Now a junior school student) who was born after our family came to Japan, he also doesn't know anything about different cultures or languages apart from Japanese and some English due to our family up bringing.

*) By making it easier for foreigners to find jobs and changing visa categories.

Japan isn't changing any of these, most people aren't conscious about this but almost all visa categories are in temporary basis and are only limited in renewals and Japanese authority seize the visa and put into the holders detention and deport them if the holders have violated the rules, if Japan is planning to do something like you said wouldn't it be easier for them to turn a blind eye on issues like these, just like the European countries are doing ?.

Also

Deportation has sky rocketed and the Japanese authorities have deported about 7,000 people in the first half of the year 2016 (Jan 2016 - July 2016).

Also tourists who have violated visa regulations are severely punished by either prohibiting future entry into the country or by fines, which is designed to discourage tourists who are overstaying. And tourists who are found gone missing are subjected for an immediate deportation.

Japanese manufacturing plants are actually moving out of the country to countries with cheaper labour and excessive supply, countries like China and Vietnam are notable, and home companies are targeting overseas customers now by penetrating into different countries so that companies will be more profitable and competitive than operating in just one country. The pace of this happening is so fast that in just 5 or 6 years the demand for foreign trainees and others who come to Japan for work related reasons will shrink to a level that the remaining visa categories (work related) will also be wiped out.

What Japan needs is actually highly skilled foreign workers whom are actually fewer than 1,500. But recent attraction of Chinese will make this figure rise but it will not be anything notable.

So NO! Japan is gonna take the automation/robots for tertiary sector route like it did in the late 90's with automation/robots for secondary sector.

@theeastisred

At least try to make your comment meaningful.

@kyushubill

Abe is a child in an adult world.

You're the kid without a proper knowledge on how an economy works, Abe is doing the right thing, he is a respectable Prime Minister, Our leader.

@BurakuminDes

This guy is delusional. Sure, Abe, drones and robots are the solution to the demographic disaster! Just keep delaying any structural changes forever. The thing is, drones and robots cannot pay tax...

Kid stop it there. Structural changes ? Come on this is 2016, you think this is the 1960's, when an economy requires labour intensive methods for production to meet the demand and aid in economic growth ? Capital intensive methods are obviously gonna increase in the future not only in Japan but also other developed economies as well, where as labour intensive methods will keep decreasing and will take the demand for immigrants down along with it.

The thing is, drones and robots cannot pay tax

Come on dude, TAX ! ? What the hell ! First of all what is tax ?

a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

The thing is you don't understand the relationship between "workers' income tax" and tax on "business profits" when it comes to automation and robots that replaces humans. Of course this can only be applied to developed countries with diminishing or ageing population .

Robots and automation will obviously increase productivity by more than 10 to 100 or more times depending on the sort of job and technological advances, and so this will will boosts a company's revenue and also will have a great cut down on costs (Training & Education including induction training, Labour costs, Fringe benefits, The time workers aren't working due to human exhaustion, Holidays or sick leaves, and many more ) as a result companies that have invested will certainly have a great increase in their profits.

Now where do these profits go ?

You might think otherwise but governments (This is what happens in Japan) will increase tax on business revenue greatly enough and maybe sometimes more than that the aggregate workers in an average company that is labour intensive pays as tax to the government. Will this discourage business to switch back to labour ? Hell no as this will give the business a greater profit as there are no expenses on human resources (The most expensive resource). Japan as a developed country and a country with just only 3% unemployment does not require any structural changes and Abe understands this clearly so does most of LDP's MPs. With Japan's increase in Tax revenue Japan will further improve R&D on technology and also use them as incentives for fertility growth (Japanese government is already doing this)

Japan will not see any notable increase in foreign workers in the future, as the pace of automation in industries "in Japan" is much faster as automation is much efficient, cheaper, and faster (training vs programming) than human resources, this trend is becoming popular in Japan day by day, and human resources is losing it's demand in Japan fast. However this is not the only reason why Japan is loosing interest and demand in immigrants.

The other reason is offshoring, Most of the Japanese companies that tend to keep the tradition labour intensive manufacturing methods, are relocating their manufacturing plants to developing countries mainly to parts of South East Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Philippines, etc) as human resources in the home country is low and very expensive. This is also happening fast day by day and this is also erasing the demand for immigrants in a fast pace.

Automation is becoming popular day by day and is mainly targeted towards manufacturing plants, construction. Recently in service sector too for instant health cares (hospitals, etc) and restaurants.

Japan or South Korea will not see any structural change as automation and service sector robots and technology is erasing the demand for one.

There are restaurants here operated by robots, I am an accountant for a company in (Name declined) Oita, Nakatsu, Our company is doing great after it switched to capital intensive methods, the governments however takes a larger proportion of the profits but still our profits are greater than what it used to be before automation. I've been working here for 8 years and a lot of companies have switched to capital intensive methods and less and less companies now demand for manual labour, Our company only have a database of 104 worker profiles, though the manufacturing plant is big enough for 12,000 workers without automation as it used to be.

low skilled human resources are not required anymore and will keep loosing demand in the future.