The 820,000 SSW ceiling and sixteen fields: where Bangladesh stands
On 29 March 2024 Japan's Cabinet set the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW(i)) acceptance ceiling for FY2024–2028 at 820,000 — more than double the previous five-year figure of 345,150 — and added road transport, railways, forestry and timber, bringing the fields to sixteen. Bangladesh signed the SSW memorandum of cooperation back in 2019, yet its share remains small next to Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines or Myanmar. Both the causes and the remedies are measurable.
A draft in his style, built from his published positions; not yet approved by him. ‘We’ in the text is BSSAJ's position.
The Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能) system began in April 2019. For its first five years (2019–2023) the acceptance ceiling was 345,150. On 29 March 2024 the Cabinet set the ceiling for the next five years at 820,000 — Japan is saying it wants, on average, more than 160,000 skilled foreign workers a year. The same decision added four fields — road transport (bus, taxi, truck), railways, forestry and timber — for a total of sixteen.
Why Bangladesh lags
Bangladesh signed the SSW memorandum of cooperation with Japan on 27 August 2019, among the first countries to do so. Yet where Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar send SSW workers by the thousand, Bangladesh's numbers are small by comparison. The cause is supply, not demand: SSW has two doors — a language test (JFT-Basic or JLPT N4) and a field skills test — and seats for both are scarce in Bangladesh. As our separate brief shows, JFT-Basic registrations close within hours.
| Field | Bangladesh's prospect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing care | High | Japan's largest need; young workforce |
| Construction | High | Proven experience in the Middle East |
| Agriculture | High | Candidates with rural backgrounds |
| Food service and food manufacturing | Medium–high | Part-time experience of students already in Japan |
| Road transport (new) | Medium | Requires a Japanese licence and higher language level |
| Other 11 fields | Varies | Prospects rise wherever the skills test is held in Bangladesh |
The student route: Bangladesh's hidden strength
By our memorandum's count, 15–20% of students are refused a COE each semester, and many of them have already studied to N4. These young people are SSW's readiest candidates: they have the language, the preparation and their family's investment. At 25% annual growth this route alone could send 8,206 SSW workers in 2026–2030 — simply by bringing student consultancies into SSW work.
Recommendations
Who does what — specific actions for governments and stakeholders, each of them checkable.
- 01Government agreements with the Japanese testing bodies to hold SSW field skills tests (nursing care, construction, agriculture, food service) regularly in Bangladesh.
- 02More JFT-Basic seats and centres — beyond Dhaka, in Chattogram, Sylhet and Rajshahi.
- 03A government counselling desk routing COE-refused and N4-holding students into SSW, run jointly by BMET and AJLIB.
- 04Move towards a zero-cost recruitment principle — employer-borne costs, as Japanese employers now expect.
Sources
- Cabinet decision of 29 March 2024 — Specified Skilled Worker acceptance ceiling FY2024–2028 and four added fields
- Memorandum of Cooperation on the Specified Skilled Worker system between Japan and Bangladesh, 27 August 2019
- Nagamatsu Faruk — memorandum to the Ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan, May 2025The source document behind the first five publications on this site.
Cite as: Nagamatsu Faruk (2026). The 820,000 SSW ceiling and sixteen fields: where Bangladesh stands. https://nagamatsufaruk.com/en/research/ssw-820000-cap-bangladesh-position