Cabinet Approves New Fields for Specified Skilled Worker Program: Logistics Warehousing, Linen Supply, Resource Recycling, and More
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On January 23, 2026, the government made a Cabinet decision to add three new fields — linen supply, logistics warehousing, and resource recycling — to the list of fields covered by the Specified Skilled Worker program. Once the relevant ministerial ordinances are promulgated and take effect, acceptance is expected to begin sequentially in fields that are ready.
It will be worth watching how much progress is made in accepting workers in these fields going forward, alongside developments on the sending-country side.
When the Specified Skilled Worker program was created in 2019, it covered 14 fields, including food service and construction, and its scope has continued to expand through subsequent additions of new fields. Adding a new field requires a Cabinet decision based on requests from industry groups and the severity of labor shortages, and the addition of linen supply, logistics warehousing, and resource recycling this time is part of that ongoing process.
This expansion of the program is seen as linked to institutional strengthening on the part of sending countries such as Bangladesh (related coverage), and is positioned as one of the measures aimed at achieving the government's acceptance target by March 2029 (related coverage).