Immediately after all Chinese group tours through this summer were canceled at the end of January and February following the coronavirus outbreak, a Chinese man in his 20s who had worked as a full-time employee at a hotel near Kansai International Airport lost his job.
"I was fired right after reservations from Chinese group tours were canceled,” he told an employee at Crobo Co., a staffing agency for foreign workers in the city of Osaka. He is now looking for a job but is avoiding the hotel industry for fears that the same could happen again.
Amid the spread of the new coronavirus, many foreign workers have been laid off and job offers for foreign students have been withdrawn — mainly from the hotel industry and restaurants hit hard from the plunge in the number of tourists, including those from overseas.