“Quake-hit Japan businesses at risk of losing many foreign interns”

… The Noto Peninsula, battered by a strong earthquake on New Year's Day, is bracing for another blow as many of the foreign technical interns that it has relied on to support its industries contemplate leaving due to a lack of support.

With reconstruction efforts proceeding slowly and water supply still disrupted in some areas four months after the magnitude-7.6 quake struck, a steady trickle of interns, most of whom come from Vietnam and Indonesia, have returned home…

Although they went to stay in evacuation centers, they found it difficult to remain due to the language barrier, with some of them spending a night on a nearby mountain huddling around an open fire in the dead of winter, the official said…

Many local businesses in fields ranging from fisheries and sewing to food processing operations in Noto rely on workers provided under the foreign trainee program…

But some have also chosen to leave Japan because they could not get responses from their employers about when their operations would resume, she said.

"Some of them returned home with the intention of coming back, but they still haven't received any response from their companies," she said….