샤플 이용료 80% 지원 받기
Japan's Specified Skilled Worker program offers retail and food service operators a legal pathway to hire foreign workers who are ready to contribute from day one. For store managers, supervisors, and HR teams at headquarters, understanding how the program works — from the hiring process through to day-to-day management — is essential to running it without gaps. This guide covers everything you need to know, in the order you'll actually need it.
Introduced in April 2019, the Specified Skilled Worker visa was created to address Japan's growing labor shortage driven by an aging and shrinking population. It allows foreign nationals with demonstrated skills and a minimum level of Japanese proficiency to work legally in designated industries, including nursing care, food service, food and beverage manufacturing, industrial product manufacturing, and agriculture, among others.
Before building any hiring plan, it's worth understanding that Type 1 and Type 2 differ significantly — not just in how long someone can stay, but in what rights they carry. Getting this wrong early can create complications down the line.
※ A Cabinet decision in January 2026 approved the addition of three new sectors, bringing the total to 19. However, these three new sectors are not expected to take effect until around 2027. For the latest details, refer to the official information from the Immigration Services Agency of Japan.
※※ For the four sectors added in 2024, eligibility for Type 2 has not yet been confirmed. As a result, Type 2 remains limited to the existing 11 sectors. Please check the Immigration Services Agency of Japan's official resources for the most current information.
In practice, the vast majority of store-level hires fall under Type 1. Because the cumulative five-year limit applies, building a system to track visa expiry dates from the moment of hiring is the most reliable way to prevent compliance gaps later on.
The Technical Intern Training Program was built around the concept of international skills transfer — not labor supply. The Specified Skilled Worker program is fundamentally different: it openly recognizes employment as its purpose, and workers are permitted to change employers under certain conditions. Transitions from Technical Intern Training to Type 1 Specified Skilled Worker status are becoming more common, but eligibility for exam exemptions must be verified carefully before proceeding.
It's also worth noting that the Technical Intern Training Program is scheduled to transition to a new "育成就労 (Ikusei Shuro)" framework in April 2027, which will change the rules in significant ways. Any management systems built around current regulations should be reviewed regularly against the latest official guidance from the Immigration Services Agency to ensure they remain valid.
Food service and food and beverage manufacturing are both covered sectors, and they align closely with store operations. Roles in cooking, customer service, and hygiene management are all areas where the program is actively being used to address frontline staffing shortages. Specifically for food service, candidates must pass the Food Service Skills Measurement Test and meet the Japanese language requirement (JLPT N4 level or equivalent) as prerequisites for hiring.
Note that as of April 13, 2026, new applications for Certificates of Eligibility in the food service sector have been suspended due to the sector reaching its acceptance cap. The timeline for lifting this suspension has not been announced. If you are currently planning new hires in this sector, verify the latest status before moving forward.
Retail as a standalone category is not a designated sector under the Specified Skilled Worker program. For supermarkets, drugstores, convenience stores, and similar operations, eligibility depends on the specific tasks being performed — and the answer will differ depending on your business type, the applicable sector, and how individual roles are classified. Misidentifying the eligible sector is a serious compliance risk that can result in a hire that doesn't meet visa requirements. This is a question that must be resolved clearly before the hiring process begins.
The path from first contact to an employee's first day on the floor generally follows these stages. Knowing what's required at each step in advance is the best way to avoid delays or oversights.
1. Recruitment and candidate matching (through registered support organizations, staffing agencies, or overseas recruitment)
2. Confirming skills test and Japanese language test results (may be waived if already obtained)
3. Employment contract signing (compensation must be at least equivalent to that of Japanese workers in the same role)
4. Visa application submission (filing required documents with the Regional Immigration Services Bureau)
5. Receiving the residence card and starting work
Visa applications involve multiple documents, and depending on the type of application and how quickly documents can be prepared, the process can take several months. Build enough lead time into your hiring schedule to avoid last-minute pressure.
Registered Support Organizations take on the legally mandated support obligations that accepting companies are required to fulfill. Their responsibilities include drafting and executing support plans, conducting life orientation sessions, and operating a consultation hotline. Monthly fees vary by the scope of services and contract terms, so it's worth comparing a few organizations before committing.
For companies managing multiple locations or bringing in Specified Skilled Workers for the first time, outsourcing to a registered support organization is one of the most effective ways to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. If you handle support in-house, maintaining thorough records of every support activity is essential to demonstrate compliance.
Accepting companies are legally required to provide ten categories of support. The most critical ones include:
Falling short on any of these obligations can result in corrective guidance, fines, or a suspension of new hiring privileges for up to five years. Keeping detailed records of all support activities — and making sure that information flows consistently between headquarters, supervisors, and store managers — is the foundation of a low-risk operation. Optional support measures, such as additional counseling resources or company social groups, aren't required but have a meaningful impact on staff retention.
When Specified Skilled Workers are spread across multiple locations, supervisors and headquarters teams can quickly find themselves buried in individual check-ins — trying to track who is working where, and when. Shopl's Schedule feature brings all of that into one place, so store-by-store and staff-by-staff schedules are visible at a glance, and any changes are reflected in real time.
With Group Templates, you don't have to rebuild the same schedules from scratch each week — recurring shift patterns can be generated automatically. The Calendar view gives a clear picture of staffing coverage across all locations without having to dig through individual stores. No more chasing updates by phone or individual WhatsApp messages. As your store count grows, you can apply the same scheduling standard everywhere, keeping operations consistent and reducing the risk of gaps.
In a multilingual workplace, verbal instructions are a reliable source of miscommunication — and inconsistencies between stores compound over time. Shopl's Posting board lets you share work procedures, store operating standards, and important notices as clear, structured posts combining text and images, with a permanent record that anyone can refer back to. This means every staff member, regardless of which location they work at, can follow the same standards.
Shopl's AI Chatbot takes this a step further by removing language as a barrier to getting quick, accurate answers. When a foreign staff member asks a question in English, Japanese, Spanish, or their native language, the AI automatically detects the language and responds naturally in kind. Staff can ask freely without hesitation, and managers spend far less time fielding the same questions in multiple languages.
Bringing Specified Skilled Workers on board is just the beginning. What keeps the arrangement working — and compliant — is having the right management infrastructure in place so that every staff member can do their job consistently, whichever store they're in.
Shopl can help you standardize how schedules are managed and how work is communicated across your entire network, so that consistent operations aren't dependent on any one person staying on top of everything manually.
