Japan's Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare revoked the licence of an Osaka-based supervising cooperative on 29 September 2026. The Immigration Services Agency and the health ministry cancelled the technical intern training plans of 16 employers on the same date, and the health ministry announced two improvement orders alongside them.
The supervising body
The cooperative, based in Osaka's Chuo Ward, lost its supervising-organisation licence under Article 37 of the Technical Intern Training Act. Supervising organisations are the bodies that place interns with member employers and are required to audit them.
The ministries' stated grounds are that, for multiple member employers, the cooperative did not submit audit reports to the Organization for Technical Intern Training promptly after audits, did not supervise training in line with the accredited plans, did not have its supervision manager give required guidance, and did not audit according to the legal standards. They also say it submitted false audit reports to the same organisation to conceal violations of immigration or labour law.
The statute and ministerial rules cited in the annex require audits of each member employer at least once every three months, including on-site checks of training and of the workplace's equipment and books.
The 16 employers
The annexes give each employer its own entry. Grouped by the finding the authorities cite, the cases fall as follows. Under the same act, accreditation of a training plan can be revoked when an employer breaches labour or immigration law.
- Fines for breaches of the Industrial Safety and Health Act, described as finalised: four employers, in Oita, Okayama's Kasaoka, Nagoya and Tokyo's Ota Ward. The Okayama employer's revocation covers 114 accreditation numbers, the most in the release.
- A finalised fine under the Labor Standards Act: one employer in Tokyo's Mizuho town, with three plans.
- Acts the ministries describe as seriously violating trainees' human rights: five employers, in Yoichi and Takikawa in Hokkaido, Noda in Chiba, Ono in Gifu and Satosho in Okayama. Takikawa accounts for eight plans.
- Not running training in line with the accredited plan: two employers, one in Tokyo's Ota Ward and one in Amami, Kagoshima. Separately, an employer in Kannonji, Kagawa, was found not to have paid wages as the plan specified.
- Having foreign nationals engage in illegal work: two employers, in Amami, Kagoshima and Yokohama.
- Showing false books and records to staff of the training organisation: one sole proprietor in Yonezawa, Yamagata, whose revocation covers 16 plans.
The release names each employer and its representative. It does not say what becomes of interns currently placed with the cooperative or the revoked employers.
Improvement orders are a separate step
Two other employers received improvement orders, which are not revocations. Under Article 15, the authorities can order an employer to take corrective measures by a set deadline. One order, to a sole proprietor in Kinko, Kagoshima, cites wages not paid as the accredited plan required. The other, to a sewing company in Saijo, Ehime, cites training not carried out according to the plan.
The act also requires public notice of orders and revocations. The release lists the findings as those of the ministries and gives no penalty amounts for the fines it cites.