Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare recently announced that a total of 6,244 foreign workers suffered serious injuries requiring four or more days off work or died due to workplace accidents in 2024. According to Japan Todaythis figure represents the highest number ever recorded, while fatalities also rose to a record 39 deaths.
“Insufficient safety training and communication gaps are believed to be behind (the upward trend),” a ministry official was quoted by the news site as saying.
Among the victims, Vietnamese workers accounted for the significant majority of accidents with 1,594 cases. They were followed by workers from the Philippines with 878 cases, Indonesia with 757, and Brazil with 673.
The manufacturing industry saw the highest concentration of incidents with 2,979 cases, followed by the construction sector with 1,165 cases. According to The Mainichithe most common types of accidents involved workers being caught in or pulled into machinery, accounting for 1,441 cases, followed by 797 instances of falls.
The volume of workplace accidents involving foreign workers has increased every year since the ministry adopted its current statistical method in 2019, when the number was just under 4,000.
While the general workplace accident rate per 1,000 workers stands at 2.35, the figure rises to 2.71 when looking exclusively at foreign staff.
Technical trainees face an especially high risk with an accident rate of 3.98 per 1,000 workers, while specified skilled workers recorded a similarly high rate of 3.91.
Yoshihisa Saito, an associate professor at Kobe University, noted that foreign workers face greater risks because technical trainees and specified skilled workers often perform jobs considered dangerous.
He told The Mainichi that “they are being hired with limited Japanese proficiency,” and many may not even be capable of filing for workers’ compensation without help.
In response to the rising figures, the Japanese government aims to reduce the foreign worker accident rate to below the national average. By 2027, it seeks to ensure that at least half of all companies provide occupational safety training programs.
The rise in accidents correlates with a steady increase in foreign labor due to Japan’s aging population and shortages. As of October 2024, there were a record 2.3 million foreign workers in Japan, according to Nippon.
Vietnam represented the largest demographic with approximately 570,000 workers, or 24.8% of the total, followed by China with 400,000 and the Philippines with 240,000. Significant year-on-year increases were also recorded from Myanmar, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
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