TOKYO - Regular monthly pay for foreign workers in Japan rose 6.4 per cent year on year in September 2025, outpacing overall wage growth but remaining about one-fifth below the national average, government figures released Aug. 31 showed.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s 2025 foreign employment survey put average regular earnings for foreign employees working standard hours at ¥292,400, up from ¥274,900 a year earlier.
For the same month, the ministry’s Monthly Labour Survey recorded average regular earnings of ¥369,555 for comparable workers nationwide, an increase of 2.4 per cent.
That placed the foreign-worker average ¥77,155, or 20.9 per cent, below the national figure, even as its annual growth rate was more than twice as high.
Both figures are gross nominal amounts that include overtime allowances but exclude bonuses and other special payments. The national average includes both Japanese and foreign workers.
The surveys also showed a difference in working hours. Foreign workers averaged 158.7 hours within their scheduled shifts and 17.6 hours outside them, compared with 146.7 scheduled and 13.1 additional hours nationwide.
The figures do not amount to a comparison of foreign and Japanese workers performing identical jobs. The surveys draw from different groups of establishments, and their averages are not adjusted for occupation, industry, employer size, seniority or other factors that influence pay.
Earnings varied sharply by residence status.
Workers in professional and technical categories averaged ¥306,500, up 6 per cent from the previous year. Specified Skilled Workers, who are included within that broader group, averaged ¥254,100, an increase of 1.5 per cent.
Technical interns remained the lowest-paid major category at ¥213,500, up 1.7 per cent. Their average was about 42 per cent below the national benchmark, while their recorded working time reached 165.2 scheduled hours and 21.4 additional hours.
The largest increase was recorded among workers whose residence status is based on family or other personal ties to Japan. The category, which includes permanent residents, spouses or children of Japanese nationals or permanent residents, and long-term residents, averaged ¥347,200—up 13.8 per cent and about 6 per cent below the national figure.
The pay data arrive as Japan’s dependence on overseas labour continues to grow. A separate ministry count showed the country employed a record 2,571,037 foreign workers at the end of October 2025, an increase of 11.7 per cent from a year earlier.
That dependence is especially visible among businesses struggling to recruit locally.
“Our operation would not exist without foreign workers. That is true for big companies, too. There is no going back now,” Toshio Kusakabe, president of Kusakabe Plastic in Gunma Prefecture, told The Mainichi.
The ministry survey received valid responses from 3,919 of 9,016 sampled establishments. It covered workplaces with at least five employment-insurance participants and one or more foreign employees.
Among responding employers, 68.2 per cent cited labour shortages as a reason for hiring foreign workers. Another 56.2 per cent said they expected foreign employees to perform as well as or better than Japanese workers.
Yet Japan also faces greater competition for overseas labour as wages rise in other destinations.
Ryuji Kinoshita, president of Hayate Japan Corp., which places Filipino workers, told The Mainichi that many Filipinos increasingly viewed employment in Japan as a step towards opportunities elsewhere.
“Japan is merely a transit point,” he said, estimating that 80 per cent of Filipinos working in the country shared that view.