SAKAI, Osaka Prefecture–Sakai Moving Service Co. plans to train truck drivers in Indonesia and bring them to Japan to help fill serious labor shortages in the industry.
Company officials said the Indonesian drivers will be immediately ready to work on the front lines in Japan under the country’s “specified skilled worker” system.
Sakai Moving will work with two businesses, including PT Daisan Minori Indonesia, which teaches driving skills and Japanese, to set up a “Sakai academy” training base in the Indonesian province of West Java, the officials said.
The trainees will be given lessons on Japan’s traffic rules and safety at a Japanese-style driving course, which DMI opened in West Java in October 2025.
Sakai Moving plans to start the program in June and train around 300 drivers over five years.
“We have got around to making this big step,” Sakai Moving President Tetsuyasu Tajima told a news conference in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on March 12. “We will further promote efforts to create a mechanism that will allow foreign personnel to have long careers in Japan and to provide cordial services that will win the trust of our customers.”
Sakai Moving employs about 3,000 drivers and undertakes more than 810,000 moving orders a year.
The company has enough personnel to meet such demand, but it is hoping to expand its domestic market share, which is currently less than 20 percent.
Sakai Moving’s drivers are aging while the employee turnover rate is falling amid improvements in working conditions.
The company decided to “go on the offensive” by setting up the training base overseas, said Atsushi Tatekawa, senior executive officer.
Sakai Moving officials said they plan to make arrangements to meet growing demand even during the busy season of March and April.
As birthrates fall and the population grays, logistics companies in Japan face difficulties acquiring staff. In addition, an upper limit of 960 hours a year has been set on the overtime work of drivers.
National Police Agency statistics show 3,987,111 people held the Class 1 large motor vehicle license in 2024, down about 10 percent from 4,422,859 in 2004.
The number of such license holders aged 39 or younger dropped more than 60 percent during the same period.
Partly against this background, the government in 2024 added the automobile transportation business to the list of industrial fields covered by the “specified skilled worker” status of residence, which is intended for non-Japanese personnel who are immediately ready to work in Japan.
Sakai Moving in September 2025 began taking in Indonesian drivers under the specified skilled worker system, and 20 of them began working in Japan in February.
The drivers were taught Japanese and were trained in moving work. But it took them several months to switch their driver’s licenses to Japanese ones in Japan.
The trainees at the new base will be prepared to have their licenses converted to Japanese ones so they can start working immediately once they are in Japan, the company officials said.
AloJapan.com