The number of Vietnamese people residing in Japan reached almost 412,000, making them the third largest foreign community in the East Asian country, just behind China and the Republic of Korea (RoK), reported the Japanese Immigration Bureau on March 27.

Vietnamese apprentices in Japan (Photo: VNA)

According to its report, the total number of foreigners in Japan amounted to 2.93 million as of late December 2019, up 202,000 from the same period in 2018, marking an increase of about 7.4%.

The Chinese was the largest community with over 813,600, followed by the RoK with more than 446,300.

The number of foreigners living in Japan as apprentices was nearly 411,000, up 25.2% year-on-year, surpassing the number of foreign students for the first time.

Those eligible for long-term residence was the largest, amounting to almost 793,200.

Japan plans to receive about 345,000 foreign workers in the next five years, in an attempt to deal with population aging and shortage of workers, so as to maintain economic growth.