The economic crisis is taking a toll on foreign trainees in Japan.
Preliminary data compiled by the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization show that the number of companies' applications for permitting foreigners into Japan as trainees or technical interns last October fell 18.8 percent from a year earlier to 4,753.
The figure for November stood at 4,692, down 25.5 percent from a year before. The organization, jointly founded by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and four other ministries, said Japanese firms are becoming reluctant to accept new foreign trainees in the face of the deteriorating economy.
The organization said an increasing number of foreign trainees have been seeking advice, saying they may be forced to return to their countries before their terms expire.
Although many foreign trainees are hired at low wages, the recent data suggest that companies, particularly small ones, are now in bad shape and aren't even hiring these low-wage workers, officials with the organization said.
By country, the number of new trainees from China fell 27.6 percent in November. Trainees from Indonesia were down 26.0 percent and those from the Philippines were down 41.0 percent.
The number of people entering Japan to become trainees had been increasing since the foreign trainee system started in 1993, topping 100,000 in 2007.