Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday that the government will soon reveal estimates of worker shortages that will effectively function as a cap on the number of foreign workers to be admitted under a new visa system currently being deliberated by the Diet.

As he spoke to the Lower House plenary session, Abe declined to divulge a specific figure, which he claimed still remains "under scrutiny" among relevant government agencies.

Quoting unnamed officials, however, Kyodo News reported Tuesday that the government is eyeing an inflow of 260,000 to 340,000 workers from fiscal 2019 through 2023 under the envisioned system, helping to assuage an estimated shortage of 1.3 million to 1.35 million workers during the same five-year period.