JAKARTA – In Japan, manufacturing factories rarely stop, with machines running day and night. 

Inside, the workforce is made up of not only Japanese workers, but also people from Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and China. 

These workers are young, move quickly and often work without complaint, keeping the country’s automobile, consumer electronics and semiconductor industries running.

Japan takes pride as one of the world’s biggest manufacturing hubs. It produced $867 billion from this business last year. According to Safeguard Global, the only countries that made more than it were China and the United States. 

It’s an attractive destination for migrant workers too, especially for those idolizing Japan’s way of living.

Stemming from a weakened Japanese yen that has deepened economic suffering, analysts argue this may have created fertile ground for nationalist-populist parties to tap into public discontent. 

The “Japan First” ideology, which has been around for decades, has recently made its emergence back into the public eye. 

The idea is that jobs should go to Japanese people before foreign workers, immigration should be limited, and Japanese culture and identity should be protected from foreign influence. 

Western media called it a “mini-Trump” movement. And as Japan’s workforce is shrinking, companies are keeping an eye on how that movement plays out.

Japan First

Japan First isn’t new. Its roots stretch back decades to the 1990s, when far-right civic groups openly opposed Korean, Chinese, and migrant communities. 

In 2016, Makoto Sakurai gave the idea a political home, founding the Japan First Party (日本第一党, Nihon Dai-ichi Tō). But the party struggled to gain traction and failed to win a single seat in either house of parliament.

During the COVID-19 pandemic where economies worldwide shut down, Japan experienced inflation, a weakened yen and rising cost of everyday life that shook the public’s faith in mainstream political establishment. 

Many voters claimed feeling abandoned and frustrated at traditional parties that seemed unable to respond to the pressures on their wallets. 

Founded by Sohei Kamiya, the Sanseitō party was born during the wave of public anxiety with a simple yet compelling message: put Japan first and put Japan on the map. 

It’s an attractive idea for youths looking for an easy scapegoat for living conditions. Among voters under 40, half supported nationalist parties such as the Democratic Party of the People (DPP) and Sanseitō, according to Kyodo News’ exit polling. 

Sanseitō won 14 new seats in the July 2025 House of Councillors election, bringing its total to 15 in the upper house.

During Kamiya’s campaigns in Yokohama around September 2025, he said, “Why do foreigners come first when the Japanese are struggling to make ends meet and suffering from fear?” 

Takashi Tachibana, the leader of another right-wing party called the NHK Party, has also uttered this rhetoric before during a street speech in front of JR Kakogawa Station in Kakogawa City, Hyogo Prefecture, back in July. “It’s scary when Black people or Muslims are in groups.”

“I am afraid of foreigners,” he confessed. “You might not feel as much fear with white people.”

Across the Pacific, the United States rode a similar tide when anti-immigrant rhetoric helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency. 

Meanwhile, in parts of Europe, countries like Hungary, Romania, Germany, and Italy have seen nationalist parties gain ground by targeting refugees and immigrants from Syrians and Afghans fleeing war, to North Africans and West Africans crossing the Mediterranean, to Eastern Europeans moving west for work.

Reality Check

Yet labour shortages remain to be the reality for many of these countries, including Japan. Factories hum day and night, yet shifts still go unfilled. Hotels, construction sites, and food factories are scrambling for hands, and for many companies, the solution lies overseas.

Nakagawa Tomohisa knows this world inside out. He’s the Japanese point of contact for LPK Fujisan in Jakarta, one of the 500-something organizations sending migrant workers to Japan. 

As his daily work consists of helping Japanese companies hire and manage workers from Indonesia, he is all too familiar with the operations mechanics. 

“Companies are basically only able to be grateful to foreign workers who are willing to help,” Nakagawa said. “They don’t think about prioritizing Japan over others.” For him, politics — the “Japan First” debates or right-wing narratives — are mostly irrelevant. Companies just need people.

The numbers back him up. Japan’s working-age population has dropped by about 16% over the last thirty years according to OECD, leaving key sectors like manufacturing, services, and construction desperately short of staff. Fewer workers also mean a shrinking tax base to keep society running.

Then, foreign workers stepped in. This year, there are 2.3 million migrants on the job. While setting a record high, they still make up only 3–4% of the workforce, the gap projected to keep widening. JICA projects that by 2030, Japan will need 4.19 million foreign workers, roughly double today’s number.

In October, Japan appointed its first woman Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP in Japan has long been a center-right to right-wing popular party that generally favors conservative social policies.

Takaichi seems to recognize a real economic need for migrant labor. Yet she is politically and ideologically cautious toward “immigration” as a broad concept. 

When she entered office, Takaichi promised to “re-think Japan’s population and immigration policy from zero,” and launched a full review of how foreign workers and residents are accepted, managed, and integrated. But still, she’s keeping a careful distance from xenophobia rhetoric. 

“Even though the Prime Minister has changed, Japan can’t function without foreigners,” Nakagawa said. “Currently, Japan has received international criticism for being seen as treating foreign workers like ‘slaves.’ We believe future policies will move toward relaxing regulations so that foreign workers can work in Japan more easily.”