일본의 외국인간호사·개호사 수용제도

Abstract

This paper examined the current situation and problems of the acceptance system of foreign nurses and caregivers in Japan and searched the ways to introduce the acceptance system for foreign nurses and caregivers in South Korea. South Korea is expected to have a severe shortage of nursing and caregiving personnels due to rapid aging of population in the future. However, the Employment Permit System for Foreign Workers, which is the current policy to accept foreign workers, permits the employment of foreign workers in simple technical sectors and does not apply to nurses or caregivers. Furthermore, in order to secure nursing and caregiving personnels, there have been discussions with a focus on the countermeasures to promote the labor market participation rate of domestic labor force with no interest in utilizing foreign labor force. However, since there is a limit in the supply and demand of domestic workers, it is necessary to start discussing about the acceptance of foreign nursing and nursing workforce. Therefore, in order to prepare the countermeasures for the shortage of domestic workforce in South Korea in the future, this paper attempted to examine the experience of Japan that is opening the door to foreign nurses and nurses. Japan recognized the seriousness of the shortage of nursing and caregivers prior to South Korea, and has been accepting foreign nurses and caregivers since 2008 under the EPA(Economic Partnership Agreement) with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In addition, in 2015, an amendment to add the "Caregiving" sector to the sojourn qualification in the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was passed, and thereby the policy responses to the shortage of nursing and caregiving workforce in Japan are being gradually shifted from domestic employment to foreign employment. Japan accepts the nurses and caregivers from the EPA Contracting States as candidates on a limited scale. Therefore, it is difficult to verify the effectiveness and impact of the EPA on the acceptance of foreign nurses and caregivers. However, there are problems in terms of enforcement such as the cost burden on the side of accepting facilities, increased burden on training staff, problems of the fluency in Japanese of the candidates, wage structure and organizational culture. As a result of investigating the introduction methods of the system to our country based on the current status and problems of the foreign nurse and caregiver acceptance system by the current EPA, this paper proposed that it is necessary to set the scale of acceptance after aligning the relevant systems by identifying the causes of the shortage of nurses and caregivers, to fortify the requirement for the fluency in Korean for the safety of patients and so on, and, finally, to approach the acceptance system of foreign nurse and caregiver from the viewpoint of employment policy.