Japan to hire 2 lakh Indian IT professionals to bridge manpower gap  

Japan is all set to hire around 2 lakh IT professionals from India in the information technology sector.

"Japan has a storage of manpower in the areas like life-science, finance, agriculture and others which India can fill the gap with its huge talent pool in the required fields," said Executive Vice President at JETRO, Shigeki Maeda.

Currently, the country has onboard 9,20,000 IT professionals, according to Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). The entry of 2 lakh IT professionals will fill the manpower gap in the sector, which will further swell to 8 lakh by 2030.

Maeda’s pitch comes at a time when the U.S administration imposed curbs on H-1B visas last month. This has affected companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, which rely on the H-1B visas to do work for American firms.

While addressing the India-Japan Business Partnership Seminar, jointly organised by Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce and JETRO, he pointed out that the required manpower will revolutionise Japan’s manufacturing methodology as well.

Also Read: Billionaire Son brothers from Japan bet big on rising tech startups in India

Apart from IT industry, Japanese companies have a presence in the manufacturing and automotive sectors also.

Meanwhile, Japan also eased rules for issuance of green cards for highly skilled professionals. The new norms will provide people to get permanent residency status in the country in a span of one year, which is considered as the fastest granted right of residence in the world.

It also eased rules for Indian travellers. From January this year, applicants do not require to submit their employment certificate and letters of explanation for multiple-entry visas. The number of documents to be submitted has been reduced to three or otherwise, if a person has travelled to Japan twice in one year, the documents will be cut to two.

Last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe laid the foundation stone of Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. Japan has given a loan of Rs 88,000 crore at 0.1 per cent interest rate for the project.

The development was first reported by ET.