According to a demographics survey published on July 10 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the number of foreign residents exceeds 2.66 million（as of January 1, 2019）, around 2.1% of the total population of Japan. This is a 6.79% increase compared to the previous year.
Among those numbers, the population of working age foreign residents （aged 15 to 64) increased 149,650 compared to the previous year. This means that 2.26 million foreign residents are working age – 85.1% of the total foreign population in the country.
Tokyo is the prefecture with the highest number of foreign residents at around 550,000. Next is Aichi Prefecture at 250,000, Osaka Prefecture at 236,000, followed by Kanagawa Prefecture at 210,000. The city with the highest number of foreign residents is Osaka, at 137,000. Osaka is also the only city in Japan to exceed 100,000.
The city with the largest increase in its foreign population was Yokohama at 6,092. As for cities and villages, Kutchan in Hokkaido was the highest, with an increase of 407.
The Revised Immigration Control Act took effect in April. This brings with it increased expectations that foreign workers will help with Japan’s labor shortage. It seems that the number of foreign workers in Japan will continue to increase in the future.
[Reference page] Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Population based on the Basic Resident’s Register, Demographics and Household Numbers（January 1,2019）
[Reference page]Population based on the Basic Resident’s Register: Points about Demographics and Household numbers（January 1, 2019）
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