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There has been a significant increase in the number of people from the small Himalayan nation of Nepal working in Japan over the past decade.
Nepalese workers formed the fifth-largest group of foreign workers in 2022. I Photo: Kyodo News
This trend is partially due to labor shortages in the service industry resulting from Japan's aging population, as reported by Kyodo News.
Many Nepalese workers, whose numbers have surged 13-fold to 120,000 nationwide in 2022, are employed as rafting guides, hotel staff, airport personnel, and other behind-the-scenes workers at bustling tourist destinations.
However, there are challenges to expanding their employment, and there are calls for regulatory changes to loosen restrictions.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, Nepalese workers formed the fifth-largest group of foreign workers in 2022. "They help alleviate Japan's labor shortages in hotels, convenience stores, factories, and restaurants," said one human resources broker.
On a summer afternoon, while navigating his raft down the whitewater rapids on the island of Shikoku, rafting guide Milthun Shrestha sings a popular Nepali tune, "Resham Firiri" ("Silk Fluttering in the Wind"), for his Japanese customers.
Shrestha, 33, came to Japan from a suburb of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. Since 2018, he has been working for the Big Smile Rafting tour company in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, providing rafting instructions in Japanese.
He is also a whitewater guide in his home country and travels to Japan every year during the Himalayan monsoon.
Shrestha, who experienced damage to his home in Nepal due to the 2015 earthquake, said, "I still have a loan to repay for rebuilding my home. My salary in Japan is five times as much as it is in Nepal."
Approximately 60 percent of Big Smile's employees are Nepalese, totaling around 60 people. Company president Akihiko Uyama noted that the Nepali "culture of respect for elders makes it easy to do business with them."
