The door has opened for the first foreign housekeepers to be hired under a government policy aimed at helping women re-enter the workforce after having children.
But as attention focuses on Kanagawa Prefecture and the city of Osaka, where domestic workers will begin training this month before being dispatched, problems remain regarding the industry's high costs and protecting workers' rights.
Double-income households welcome the legal change, which will ease the labor shortage in the housekeeping industry, but it remains to be seen whether the new policy will produce the desired effect and increase the use of housekeepers in ordinary households.