Job offers for Indonesian nurses drop by 60 pct in Japan
Source: Antara
February 18, 2010
The number of jobs Japanese medical facilities are offering to Indonesian trainee nurses in fiscal 2010 will be 141 at most, a 60 percent drop from 362 in the previous year, a recruitment organization said Wednesday.
The Japan International Corporation of Welfare Services, which oversees international recruitment under the 2007 Japan-Indonesia economic partnership agreement, said the significant drop can be attributed to the financial burden on the facilities during the recession and an increase in the number of Japanese workers applying for jobs, Japanese News Agency Kyodo said in its report on Thursday.
The organization said it started calling upon hospitals and nursing facilities nationwide to accept the trainees in November last year, but it was only able to secure jobs for 107 at 45 facilities by the Jan. 12 deadline.
After it extended the deadline by about one month, the number rose to 141 at 62 facilities but still remained low compared to fiscal 2009, it said.
Japan has been accepting nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines since reaching an EPA with both countries in order to make up for the lack of caregivers in the domestic market.
Under the EPA, those who come to Japan study Japanese and receive training as nurses or care workers for three or four years at Japanese facilities, and then need to pass a national exam before formally being accepted as a nurse or care worker.
But some point out that the medical terms and Chinese characters used in Japan present great obstacles for such foreign trainees to overcome.
