Vietnamese nurses trained in Japan (Source: NIKKEI)

In a report released on October 25, the agency said the number of Vietnamesepeople increased by 12.4 percent compared to data in the most recent report.

Particularly, the number ofVietnamese living in Japan as "skill trainees" is growing sharply, reachingabout 190,000 at present.

By the end of June 2019, the totalnumber of foreigners in Japan was 2.82 million, an increase of 3.6 percentcompared to the end of December 2018 and reaching the highest level ever.

Chinese are the largest community in Japan with 786,241 people, followed by Koreanswith 451,543 people.

Since April, the Japanesegovernment has adopted a revised immigration management law with theintroduction of 14 new statuses of residence with specific skills in areaswhere there is a serious shortage of labour in the country such as nurses andconstruction workers.  

Foreign workers, who meet all requirementssuch as passing a professional examination and Japanese language, will be ableto work in Japan for up to 5 years, instead of just 3 years prescribed in previousregulations.

According to a plan set by theJapanese government, within the next five years, the country will receive about345,000 foreign workers. This is said to be one of the important measures tohelp Japan address the population aging and labour shortage, thus maintainingits economic growth./.VNA