Japan's Specified Skilled Worker (Type 1) program held 425,961 resident workers against a cap of 805,700 as of the end of June 2026, a 52.9% fill rate nationally. The caps themselves were reset by cabinet decision on January 23, 2026 and now run through March 2029, but how close each of the nineteen covered sectors sits to its ceiling varies enormously.
Food service is the standout: 49,060 holders against a 50,000-person cap, a 98.1% fill rate that leaves restaurant operators almost no room to hire under the program before Tokyo revisits the ceiling. Food and beverage manufacturing is close behind at 75.5% (100,769 holders of a 133,500 cap). Construction sits at 68.6% (52,132 of 76,000) and nursing care, the sector with the third-largest allocation, is at 63% (79,884 of 126,900).
| Sector | Cap | Holders | Fill Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food service | 50,000 | 49,060 | 98.1% |
| Food & beverage manufacturing | 133,500 | 100,769 | 75.5% |
| Construction | 76,000 | 52,132 | 68.6% |
| Nursing care | 126,900 | 79,884 | 63.0% |
| Agriculture | 73,300 | 44,050 | 60.1% |
| Industrial products manufacturing | 199,500 | 62,033 | 31.1% |
| Accommodation | 14,800 | 2,556 | 17.3% |
| Road transport | 22,100 | 558 | 2.5% |
| Railway | 2,900 | 64 | 2.2% |
| Forestry | 900 | 19 | 2.1% |
| Timber industry | 4,500 | 74 | 1.6% |
| Total (all sectors) | 805,700 | 425,961 | 52.9% |
At the other end, road transport has filled just 2.5% of its 22,100-person cap, with only 558 holders. Railway operators have taken on 64 workers against a 2,900 cap, a 2.2% fill rate. Forestry and the timber industry are similarly thin, at 2.1% and 1.6% respectively. All four categories, road transport, railway, forestry, and timber, carry the disclosure's footnote marking their addition to the Specified Skilled Worker program in March 2024, so their thin rolls reflect a channel still ramping up rather than years of unused capacity.
Three categories, linen supply, logistics warehousing, and resource circulation, were only added to the program in January 2026 and show no holder figures at all in this release, marked with a dash rather than a number.
The biggest single allocation, industrial products manufacturing, is running at 31.1% (62,033 of a 199,500 cap), meaning the sector with the largest headroom for hiring under the program is also one of the furthest from using it. Building cleaning sits at 31.6% (10,171 of 32,200) and accommodation at 17.3% (2,556 of 14,800), leaving hospitality employers with plenty of unused slots but, on this data, few workers to fill them.