Filipinos 3rd-largest group in Japan—report

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) constitute the third-biggest group of Japan’s foreign population, at 237,103 as of June this year, the Japanese Justice Ministry said on Monday.

According to a report by Japan Times, expats in Japan currently number 2.31 million, with the Chinese as the largest group with 677,571. Trailing behind are South Korean nationals with 456,917. Aside from Filipinos, a large number of Brazilians and Vietnamese are working in Japan, with 176,284 and 175,744, respectively.

The report said that people with middle- to long-term visas made up 85.1 percent of the total number of expats. An overwhelming 713,604 are permanent residents while 257,739 are non-Japanese students enrolled in colleges and universities. As pinpointed by the ministry, the number of interns acquiring “cash and skills” in Japan ballooned to 210,893 from 192,665 in the final quarter of 2015.

The number of illegal expats in Japan reached 63,492, with 674 of them losing their legal status this year. A total of 6,924 foreign workers were deported in the first half of 2016.  Gianna Francesca Catolico