As part of efforts to alleviate a labor shortage in the elderly care sector, the welfare ministry plans to extend to fiscal 2026 special transitional measures that grant graduates of care courses provisional certification without the need to pass a national exam, ministry sources said Sunday.
Officials hope that extending the measures — originally scheduled to continue until fiscal 2021, which ends in March 2022 — will encourage an increasing number of foreign nationals to work in Japan after graduating from universities and vocational schools that offer training in elderly care, the sources said.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry will submit a bill on the matter to the ordinary Diet session that convened for the first time Monday.