The UK Government has been advised to remove nearly 300,000 skilled jobs from the list of positions open to workers from outside the European Union, The Herald Sun reports.  Its Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) says more than 100,000 skilled construction jobs, including managers and quantity surveyors, on large property projects should immediately be closed to foreign applicants.

Social workers involved in adult care are also set to be removed from the official shortage occupation list.  But advisers say orchestra musicians, high-level contemporary dancers and special-effects animators for film and video should be added to the list of shortage skilled occupations so more overseas staff can be recruited.

MAC chairman David Metcalf said the new shortage list took account of the impact of the global recession on Britain, cutting the number of jobs open to skilled workers from outside the EU from 800,000 to 530,000. “We have looked critically at the evidence regarding the occupations under review and made recommendations which balance the needs of the UK workforce against those of employers,” Metcalf told The Guardian.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith was expected to implement the recommendations, which form part of the new points-based immigration system. 

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The Japan Times reports that massive layoffs from the current economic crisis are falling heavily on foreign workers, many of whom are opting to leave the country to seek work back home.  But for those who stay, there remain the difficulties of adapting to Japanese society, limited educational opportunities for their children and lack of medical support. Yet a rapidly aging Japan is unlikely to long remain the world's second-largest economy without them.

'Japan's immigration policy has always been a patchwork. We need to have proper laws and regulations in place when accepting people from abroad,' Susumu Ishihara, 57, president of the Japan Immigrant Information Agency, said during a recent interview with The Japan Times.  Motivated by a sense of urgency, Ishihara recently spent ¥5 million of his own money to launch a quarterly Japanese-language magazine, called Immigrants, focusing on immigration issues. The goal is to provide more information on foreigners living here to Japanese people to bridge the gap between the two sides.

Counting some 600,000 Chinese and 590,000 Koreans, Japan was home to 2.15 million foreigners as of 2007, nearly twice as many as in 1990, according to the Justice Ministry.  Separately, current Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura established a lawmakers' group to create a bill to support schools for foreigners living in Japan. In addition, the Cabinet Office set up an office especially to deal with problems facing foreigners here earlier this year.

'For a long time, the issue of foreigners here has been regarded as taboo in the political arena because working for foreigners' rights won't help politicians get elected, and it may even anger some Japanese who don't want to accept foreigners. So, I welcome such moves by politicians,' said Ishihara, who is also an expert on Korean residents in Japan.  Behind such moves is the growing uncertainty about Japan's future. Ishihara notes Japan's population is expected to drop below 90 million by 2050, 30 million to 40 million less than the 2005 level.  

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