Only 1 in 4 Japanese companies plan to actively employ foreign workers under a new government immigration program, a poll has found, complicating Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to ease the country's tightest job market in decades.

Also, the bulk of the firms that may hire immigrants under the program do not plan to support them in securing housing, learning Japanese language skills or acquiring information on living in Japan, the Reuters Corporate Survey showed.

The survey results underscore the challenge Japan faces in coping with its dwindling and aging population, which has put pressure on the government to relax tight controls on foreign labor. Immigration has long been taboo in the country as many Japanese prize ethnic homogeneity.