With the December 2018 amendment to the immigration control law, the government created a new visa category to admit more foreign workers. It expects up to 345,000 workers from overseas to enter Japan in five years under the new visa program to work in 14 sectors such as care giving, restaurant services and construction.
The government also adopted a set of comprehensive measures to "accept foreign talent and to live together." Many of them were aimed at improving multilingual information services for foreign residents. Especially noteworthy is the Justice Ministry's attempt to help open "one-stop centers for intercultural general consultation" at 100 local governments across Japan.
In addition to the provision of multilingual services to foreign residents through these centers, national government ministries and agencies have set out to improve the content of information services provided in foreign languages and make it easier to understand. Thus the government sector is ready to upgrade information services in a larger number of languages, with the Justice Ministry compiling a guidebook for daily life and employment in 11 languages for foreign residents.