The problem of foreign nationals with specific skilled worker moving from rural areas to urban areas, not just technical intern trainees, is a headache for employers. In order to address this issue, the training employment system that will replace the technical intern training system has been proposed to allow transfers, but limit the number of transfers from rural areas to urban areas to less than one-sixth. (Fukushi Shimbun, 2025/2/17)
Example of “Fukui Class”
Toyo Keizai Online has published an interesting article titled “Groundbreaking results of the “Fukui Class” aimed at retaining technical intern trainees” (March 15, 2025), which is summarized below.
Fukui Prefecture has launched a unique program called “Fukui Class” in 2024 to accept nursing care trainees from Myanmar. The program aims to have nursing care personnel living in Myanmar learn the Fukui dialect and culture in advance and settle into nursing care facilities in Fukui Prefecture. By learning the Fukui dialect, Myanmar’s technical trainees will be able to communicate more smoothly locally and more easily adapt to the local area.
Through this initiative, Fukui Prefecture is supporting foreign workers to become established in the local community. This project, which began with Director Yoshida Shinnai’s idea of ”a life supported by Fukui,” is helping to alleviate the shortage of care facilities in Fukui Prefecture. Director Yoshida’s activities are attracting attention from around the country, and are becoming more and more widespread.
True measures
The “Fukui Class” was also introduced in an article dated September 20, 2024 by FBC Fukui Broadcasting titled “Internship trainees from Myanmar come to Japan to become immediate assets in the nursing care field; “Fukui Class” also teaches dialect; prefecture plans to accept 60 people per year”, but there was no mention of the effectiveness of this in preventing the outflow of human resources to urban areas.
According to an article in the Fukushi Shimbun, the curriculum for the “Fukui Class” (12 sessions in total) is based on the following three elements:
- There is a wage disparity between the higher wages in the Tokyo metropolitan area and other regions, so in order to settle talent in regional areas, it is important to identify talent suitable for each region before they arrive, not after they arrive.
- Reducing the gap between before and after they arrive in Japan is also a major factor in settling talent.
- After arriving in Japan, people are required to learn new things in their daily lives and work, which can be very stressful. For this reason, many people said that “it is important to learn about the local characteristics and dialects before coming to Japan.”
This is a real measure to prevent the outflow of human resources to urban areas.