Government data shows that 30 foreign worker ‘trainees’ in Japan under the Technical Trainee Internship Programme (TITP) died in Labour Ministry recognized work related deaths over the four year period of 2014 - 2017.  This comes to an average of 3.64 work related deaths for each 100,000 foreign ‘trainees’, as opposed to a rate of 1.73 per 100,000 for Japanese workers. 

The TITP has been subject to long standing criticism for lacking adequate safeguards to protect foreign workers from abuse. The government has recently rammed through parliament a bill that will increase dramatically the intake of foreign workers, and concerns are high that the those workers will also be similarly vulnerable.