JAKARTA - Every year, young Indonesians get on planes to Japan under the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) with a simple dream. They want to learn skills by working in fields that might not be their previous qualifications, send parts of their paycheck to their families, and (perhaps) return years later with valuable work experience.
In reality, many workers under the program reported long working hours, wage violations, and restricted job mobility. And after over 30 years of criticism, Japan is putting an end on the program and replacing it with something new in 2027.
Right now, tens of thousands of Indonesian workers are betting their futures on a program with an expiration date. As of June 2025, over 230,000 Indonesians live in Japan, many of them technical trainees. That number has exploded from just 50,000 before the pandemic.
But what happens when the system they entered under simply ceases to exist?
The answer lies not only in labor policy, but in Japan’s demographic reality. The country's working-age population has fallen 16 percent from 87.3 million in 1995 to 73.7 million in 2024, with another 31 percent decline projected by 2060. Construction, agriculture, food processing are already struggling to fill positions. And when the working-age population is decreasing, that means the country’s tax base is also shrinking.
By 2029, Japan will need an estimated 800,000 workers in the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) program alone. Indonesia is one of the priority source countries. The old trainee system, designed when Japan could still rely on domestic labor, cannot meet these demands.
The Controversial Technical “Intern” Trainee Program
The TITP launched in 1993 with a noble goal: transfer technical skills and knowledge to workers from developing countries, supporting international development while addressing modest labor needs at home.
The program explicitly stated that technical training “shall not be conducted as a means of adjusting labor supply and demand.” But, that principle died fast.
By 2019, over 308,000 trainees were working in Japan. Construction, agriculture, food processing. Small and medium enterprises, especially in rural areas, came to depend on cheap foreign labor to stay afloat. What began as a development aid program morphed into a de facto guest worker system without the protections that typically come with one.
The problems were systemic. Between 2012 and 2017, 171 trainees died during the program, according to Ministry of Justice figures. The same investigation also uncovered 759 cases of suspected abuse.
Critics inside and outside Japan pointed to wallet-draining recruitment fees sometimes reaching $10,000, mandatory “punishment” contracts that forced workers to forfeit thousands of dollars if they quit, confiscated passports, and tight restrictions on job changes that left workers vulnerable to exploitation.
The restrictions on job mobility proved particularly damaging. When trainees moved from their first to second year, they had to remain with the same employer. This requirement created a severe power imbalance where workers could not leave abusive situations without losing their visa status entirely.
The US State Department's 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report documented cases where employers controlled trainee movements to prevent escape or outside communication.
Legislative reforms did come in waves, but they never quite addressed the core issues. The Labor Standards Act was not applied to the program when it first launched, allowing workplaces to engage in practices like non-payment of wages that would be illegal for domestic workers.
It took until 2010 for Japan to extend basic labor protections to international trainees. In 2016, the government created a new oversight body with investigative powers, but civil society organizations criticized the reforms as insufficient.
The decision to extend the maximum program duration from three to five years, they argued, would only prolong abuse rather than prevent it.
By 2023, nearly 10,000 foreign trainees went missing from their workplaces in a single year, many of them fleeing exploitative conditions. The backlash from both domestic and international critics had become impossible to ignore. Prominent voices calling for abolition included the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and Taro Kono, who formerly served as Minister for Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform.
The New Employment for Skill Development (ESD) Scheme
By 2024, Japan's parliament passed legislation to replace the TITP with what officials call the Training and Employment Program, though it's more commonly known as the Employment for Skill Development (ESD) system. The law takes effect by June 2027.
The Japan International Trainee & Skilled Worker Cooperation Organization (JITCO) has supported the old system since its inception and will continue under the new one. In a written response to questions about the transition, JITCO acknowledged what many critics have been saying for years.
“Although the TITP was originally intended to promote human resource development and international cooperation, the secondary effects, such as increased productivity and revitalization of companies and local communities resulting from accepting technical interns, gradually became the primary purpose of acceptance in some cases,” the organization told Migrant Times.
“As technical interns came to be regarded as indispensable labor for business continuity on the receiving side, a gap emerged between the original intent of the system and the realities on the ground. It is difficult to deny that such discrepancies occurred in certain instances.”
The program stopped being about training and became about filling labor shortages.
JITCO views the transition positively. "While inheriting the human resource development role that the TITP has fulfilled, the new system strengthens perspectives on human rights protection and long-term career development in Japan. We believe this change will be beneficial for both host companies and foreign workers."
The biggest change is how the new system connects to the SSW visa, which Japan introduced in 2019. Instead of being locked into the old trainee model, workers will now enter through an ESD pathway, spending three years in training designed to lead directly to SSW Type 1 status. Under the old system, many workers reached the end of their 3 to 5 years in Japan with no clear path forward.
Language requirements are getting stricter, but in ways that might actually help workers. Before arriving in Japan, participants must demonstrate Japanese language proficiency equivalent to the A1 level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. After three years, they need to reach A2 level, roughly equivalent to JLPT N4.
Employers will be required to provide opportunities for workers to take language exams and attend classes, at company expense. This requirement addresses one of the most common complaints about the old system, where workers arrived with minimal language skills and struggled to communicate basic needs or report problems.
Under the old framework, trainees were stuck. Leaving a bad workplace usually meant starting over or going home. The new system changes that. After one year, workers will be allowed to switch employers, provided they submit a revised training and employment plan that meets government standards.
But not everyone is convinced this will be easy to implement. JITCO said that sending organizations have raised concerns about whether enough candidates will meet the higher language bar.
“Technical interns themselves may be anxious about the period during which they can remain in Japan as technical interns under transitional measures,” JITCO’s spokesperson told us further.
“Through various support initiatives, we will continue to assist host companies and organizations in developing and securing human resources.”
What This Means for Migrant Sending Countries
The reform creates both opportunities and challenges for countries that have built entire industries around sending workers to Japan. Indonesia is a case study for this.
The country has over 500 registered LPKs (vocational training centers) scattered across the archipelago. Of these, 507 are registered as Sending Organizations authorized to dispatch workers under the technical trainee program.
But the future belongs to a different kind of worker, and some training centers saw it coming years ago. LPK SAMIT (Sakura Mitra International), a training center based in Tangerang that opened during the pandemic in 2020, doesn't view the planned 2027 overhaul with much anxiety.
SAMIT's directors, Rio and Tono, say the direction of Japanese policy has been obvious for years. Rio studied and worked in Japan before returning to Indonesia and now runs the Tangerang-based training center. Tono, his co-director, oversees student placement and relations with Japanese organizations. Together, they made an early decision to stop treating the trainee program as the main pathway.
“The 2027 policy won’t really affect Tokutei Ginou (SSWs),” Tono says. “What’s being narrowed is the trainee system.”
From their perspective, the replacement of TITP with the new ESD framework does not change the core reality of the labor market. Japanese companies still need foreign workers, and they’re already prioritizing SSW because they arrive with better language skills, require less supervision, and can be deployed more flexibly.
Rio says that’s why SAMIT never built its model around trainees in the first place. “We based our decisions on what companies were actually asking for,” he explains. “And what they wanted was Tokutei Gino (SSWs).”
The reforms simply formalize a shift that has already happened on the ground. Requirements for trainees are being raised, supervision is becoming more complex, and the space for sending organizations to profit from volume placements is shrinking. At the same time, the number of job categories under the SSW scheme continues to expand.
“Trainees are being squeezed,” Tono says. “Tokutei Ginou (TITP) is being prepared for expansion.”
That divergence matters for Indonesian training centers. Those that built their business around fast trainee placements may struggle as rules tighten and margins narrow. Centers that invested in language training and longer preparation cycles, like SAMIT, are better positioned.
What is certain is that Japan's demographic crisis will not wait for bureaucratic processes to catch up. The country needs workers now and will need many more in the coming decade.
Whether the new ESD system proves more humane and effective than the old trainee program will depend not just on the rules as written, but on the willingness of employers, supervising organizations, and government officials to actually enforce them.
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