Three municipalities, including Higashikawa in Hokkaido's Kamikawa subprefecture, and nursing care providers in the prefecture's north introduced in April a scholarship program for non-Japanese attending welfare services schools to encourage them to take up jobs at local nursing homes.

The move has raised hopes that a foreign workforce could become a solution to the region's struggles with a labor shortage in the nursing care sector.

Five other towns from the subprefectures of Kamikawa, Soya and Okhotsk had followed suit as of September, enabling nursing homes in those areas to make job offers to students from a vocational school in Higashikawa. Of them, 13 are now scheduled to fill vacant spots at facilities in each of those areas right after graduation.