Will solving labor shortages solve the real problem?
Across Japan, many industries are struggling with labor shortages.
Nursing care, hospitality, manufacturing, and food service.
Hiring people from overseas has become an important option for supporting these industries.
But there is a question we need to ask.
Hiring someone and creating a workplace where that person can continue to work and grow are not the same thing.
What happens when a newly hired employee has no one they feel comfortable approaching?
What happens when someone studies Japanese but still struggles to understand instructions at work?
What if even asking for help feels difficult?
Increasing the number of employees does not automatically make an organization more sustainable.
Japanese language education is not an employee benefit.
I do not believe Japanese language education should be treated as simply another form of language training.
Language is part of the foundation that connects people.
Consider a nursing care workplace.
Being able to say, "I don't understand."
Being able to confirm instructions.
Being able to ask colleagues for guidance when uncertain about a decision.
These abilities are not only about language proficiency. They are also closely connected to workplace safety and trust.
This means Japanese language education should not be left entirely to the efforts of international employees themselves.
Employers must design language education as an essential part of how their organizations operate.
Japanese language is not a skill. It is infrastructure.
Japanese is more than an individual competency.
It is infrastructure that enables people to work, learn, and connect with society.
Building organizations where people can recover from mistakes.
In education, mistakes are often understood as opportunities for growth.
I believe the same principle applies to adults in the workplace.
Consider two different environments.
One where employees are immediately criticized when they make mistakes, and another where colleagues work together to understand what went wrong.
One where people feel they must hide what they do not know, and another where they can ask questions without fear.
Which environment is more likely to help people grow?
Of course, accepting mistakes does not mean removing responsibility.
What matters is maintaining clear accountability while creating opportunities to learn again and try again.
I call this a "structure that allows people to return" — a system that gives people a path back to learning, confidence, and participation after setbacks.
Organizations that develop people are not necessarily places where mistakes rarely happen.
They are places where people have the opportunity and support to recover from them.
Three things employers can do.
For companies considering the employment of international workers, I would like to propose three practical steps.
First, design employee development plans before recruitment begins.
What will employees learn after joining the organization?
Who will support them?
How will their progress and development be evaluated?
Recruitment and employee development should never be treated as separate processes.
Second, create relationships where people feel safe asking for help.
Establishing a formal consultation desk is not enough.
Employees need an environment where they genuinely feel comfortable speaking up, along with reliable systems that respond appropriately when concerns are raised.
Third, employers must continue learning as well.
International employees should not be the only ones expected to adapt to Japanese workplaces.
Employers also need to develop intercultural understanding and improve how they communicate.
This mutual process of learning is essential to building sustainable organizations.
From Okinawa to ASEAN. And toward the society we want to build.
When I think about connecting Okinawa and ASEAN through international employment, my goal is not simply to move workers across borders.
It is to create relationships in which people can realize their potential while the organizations that welcome them grow alongside them.
To achieve this, recruitment, education, and organizational development must be understood as parts of one connected system.
We need to move beyond a society focused only on finding and hiring people.
We need to build a society where people can continue to learn, contribute, and grow.
In an age of labor shortages, perhaps the question we should be asking is not simply how many people we can hire, but how capable we are, as a society, of helping people grow.
