India–Japan Human Resource Cooperation (2025): Skills, Mobility And Institutional Coordination.

Policy Update
Anamika P K

BACKGROUND

India–Japan relations have progressively diversified across several areas, including trade, investment, strategic engagement, science and technology, education, and people-to-people exchanges. The India–Japan Vision Statement, adopted on 29 October 2018, underscored the potential to leverage India’s demographic strengths alongside Japan’s capital, technological capabilities and industrial expertise, while identifying human resource development and exchanges as key pillars of bilateral cooperation. The complementary demographic and economic profiles of the two countries offer considerable opportunities for strengthening educational collaboration and workforce mobility. Building on this shared vision, both countries have pursued initiatives such as Japan-India Institutes for Manufacturing (JIMs), Japanese Endowed Courses (JECs), and expanded Japanese-language education to develop an industry-oriented talent pool and facilitate greater human resource exchanges.

Building upon these pre-existing institutional foundations, the Action Plan for India- Japan Human Resource Exchange and Cooperation was announced on 29th August 2025, during 15th India-Japan Annual Summit. The initiative responds to two complementary priorities:

India’s objective of strengthening workforce capabilities, manufacturing capacity and international employer opportunities
Japan’s rising demand for skilled human resources particularly in sectors experiencing labour shortages.

The Action Plan envisages more than 500,000 personnel exchanges in both directions between India and Japan over five years, covering the broader framework of human resource, educational and institutional exchanges. Within this overall aspirational target, it separately identifies the movement of 50,000 skilled and semi-skilled Indian personnel to Japan, representing a specific employment-oriented component rather than an additional target. The institutional foundations for this cooperation predate the Action Plan. The 2025 India–Japan Joint Vision states that JIMs and JECs, established from 2016 onwards, have created a talent pipeline of approximately 30,000 people trained in Japanese manufacturing and managerial skills. This provides a baseline for the new framework rather than evidence of outcomes generated by the 2025 Action Plan itself.

The Action Plan identifies five broad objectives:

Attracting skilled personnel and potential talents from India to Japan.
Leveraging complementary human resources for joint research, commercialisation and value creation.
Promoting Japanese-language education and reciprocal cultural, educational and grassroots exchanges.
Addressing Japan’s human-resource shortages while supporting India’s skill development and manufacturing priorities.
Strengthening connections between Japanese companies and Indian students.

The Action Plan therefore is extends beyond a conventional skills-training initiative. It represents an expansion of bilateral cooperation from individual training and exchange programmes towards a more coordinated human-resource mobility framework.

FUNCTIONING

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India, and Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) are entrusted with overall responsibility for implementing the Action Plan and conducting annual consultations at the Joint Secretary/Director General level. However, implementation is distributed across specialised ministries, agencies and institutional partners. The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) are involved in promoting employment opportunities, Japanese-language education, job fairs and employer–employee matchmaking.

Educational and research initiatives are supported through existing bilateral mechanisms and programmes involving universities and relevant Japanese institutions. Indian state governments, Japanese prefectures, training organisations and private-sector employers contribute to regional skill development, recruitment and placement. Indian Missions and Posts, with support from the Japanese government, facilitate on-arrival orientation and grievance redressal. The Action Plan also envisages using existing bilateral dialogue mechanisms covering education, skills, science and technology, and the digital economy to complement implementation.

The framework of the Action Plan is organized around seven components:

High-skilled Personnel: The Action Plan aims to enhance the participation of Indian academic personnel and engineering professionals in Japan’s workforce. It proposes special recruitment missions by Japanese companies to Indian higher-education institutions, to familiarise the students with career prospects, especially in the emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. Additionally, surveys of Indian professionals currently working in Japan are envisaged to identify effective employment practices and strengthen recruitment and retention mechanisms. The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme further expands these opportunities by opening up avenues for Indian candidates to work as assistant English- language teachers in Japan.
Students and Researchers: Educational and research collaboration forms an important component of the Action Plan, building on existing bilateral initiatives such as the India–Japan High-Level Policy Dialogue on Education, the Inter-University Exchange Project and the Japanese Government’s MEXT Scholarship Programme. The Sakura Science Exchange Programme facilitates short-term academic and scientific exchanges, enabling Indian students and researchers to visit Japanese universities and research institutions. The Action Plan also refers to MIRAI-Setu, which aims to strengthen institutional and industry exposure for Indian students through university interactions and internship opportunities in Japan. Additionally, the LOTUS Programme promotes India–Japan research collaboration in advanced scientific and technological fields. These initiatives collectively seek to strengthen academic partnerships, research exchanges and industry–academia linkages.
Specified Skilled Worker System and Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP) : The Action Plan identifies Japan’s existing Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP) and the proposed Employment for Skill Development (ESD) Programme as complementary pathways for attracting Indian workers to Japan. TITP is an existing framework that enables foreign nationals to acquire technical skills through training and employment in Japan. The ESD Programme, introduced through Japan’s revised foreign-worker framework, is intended to replace TITP and establish a more structured pathway for developing workers’ skills and progressing towards the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) system. However, the ESD Programme was not yet operational when the Action Plan was announced in August 2025; its introduction was envisaged for 2027. Accordingly, the Action Plan refers to attracting Indian workers through ESD once introduced, rather than presenting it as an existing operational pathway.
Skill Development: Japan’s expertise in industrial operations and management, and manufacturing is envisaged to develop a highly skilled, Japan- ready workforce in India. The India–Japan Talent Bridge aims to connect students and mid-career professionals with internship and employment opportunities through job-matching initiatives. Meanwhile India-Nippon Programme for Applied Competency Training (INPACT) facilitates vocational training and the introduction of specialised endowed courses. The Action Plan envisages support from Indian State Governments in coordinating the training and placement of their residents in Japan, in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). NSDC is expected to facilitate these efforts through its role in skill development, employment linkages and coordination with relevant Japanese stakeholders.
Language Capability Development: The Action Plan identifies Japanese-language proficiency as an important enabling condition for educational and employment mobility. The Action Plan envisages expanding Japanese-language teacher training and strengthening language-learning opportunities in India through existing and proposed initiatives. These include the Japan Foundation’s Teachers’ Training Course A (360 hours), which the Plan proposes scaling up and orienting towards the language requirements of industry and skilled workers, and the NIHONGO Partners Programme, which it envisages introducing in India on a long-term basis. Under the latter, Japanese citizens will be dispatched to Indian secondary schools to support local Japanese-language teachers and students. The Plan also proposes increasing the number and capacity of examination centres for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) and the Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese (JFT-Basic). Together, these measures seek to strengthen language proficiency, improve access to recognised assessments and prepare candidates for educational and employment opportunities in Japan.
Awareness, Support and Coordination: To strengthen the recruitment outreach and improve access to employment information and opportunities, the Action Plan puts forward initiatives such as job fairs, targeted awareness campaigns and employer- employee matchmaking seminars. Additionally, on-arrival orientation programmes, workshops and grievance-redressal mechanisms facilitated through Indian Missions and Posts, complemented by a proposed centralised information portal are envisaged to support the Indian personnel working in Japan. Further, State–Prefecture partnerships are also expected to align skill development initiatives undertaken by Indian state governments with the specific workforce requirements of Japanese prefectures, thereby strengthening institutional coordination and recruitment linkages.
Implementation and Follow-up: The implementation framework envisages annual consultations to review progress, assess the status of ongoing initiatives and identify areas requiring further coordination. Existing bilateral dialogue mechanisms covering education, skill development, science and technology, and other areas of cooperation are expected to support regular follow-up and facilitate coordination across the different components of the Action Plan.

The Action Plan extends bilateral human resource cooperation beyond worker mobility to encompass research, internships, educational exchanges and institutional collaboration. The Action Plan does not specify a consolidated financial allocation for the overall framework in the published document. Implementation is instead described through a range of existing programmes, proposed measures and institutional contributions involving government agencies, educational institutions, training partners and private-sector employers. The availability of resources, division of costs and institutional capacity will therefore be important considerations in assessing implementation.

PERFORMANCE

Since the Action Plan was announced in August 2025, its performance should be assessed in terms of early implementation, institutional preparedness and progress towards its stated objectives, rather than its full five-year outcomes. The existing India–Japan cooperation framework provides a baseline for this assessment. The 2025 Joint Vision reports that JIMs and JECs have developed a talent pipeline of approximately 30,000 people trained in Japanese manufacturing and managerial skills since their inception in 2016. These achievements predate the new Action Plan and should be treated as the institutional foundation on which its implementation builds.

According to the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship’s (MSDE) Year-End Review 2025, under the Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP), a cumulative total of 2,601 Indian technical interns had been sent to Japan since 2018. Of these, 1,271 were deployed between April 2024 and November 2025 across sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, construction, textiles, agriculture and food manufacturing. Under the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) framework, 220 Indian candidates had been deployed cumulatively, including 173 during April 2024–November 2025. These figures indicate the scale of existing India–Japan mobility pathways and their recent expansion, but should not be interpreted as outcomes attributable exclusively to the 2025 Action Plan.

A further implementation development was the India–Japan Stakeholder Consultation on Skill Development convened by MSDE in New Delhi on 14 August 2026. The consultation brought together central and state government representatives, Japanese institutions and industry, recruitment agencies, sending organisations and training partners. Discussions focused on ESD Programme, TITP and SSW pathways, Japanese-language training, recognised assessments, employer engagement and coordination across implementing institutions. According to the official release, the consultation identified the need for a roadmap with short-, medium- and long-term actions, assigned responsibilities and measurable milestones. This signals an effort to translate the bilateral commitments into coordinated implementation; however, the consultation and proposed roadmap should not be treated as evidence that the intended employment outcomes have already been achieved.

A comprehensive assessment of performance will require regular public reporting on the number of candidates trained, assessed, recruited and placed through the Action Plan, alongside data on occupational categories, regional participation, employment retention and workplace conditions. The available deployment figures provide a useful baseline, but do not by themselves establish progress towards the Action Plan’s overall exchange target or its longer-term skill-development objectives.

IMPACT

The Action Plan is designed to generate benefits beyond international employment placement. For Indian students, researchers and professionals, it envisages greater access to Japanese universities, research institutions, internships and employment opportunities. For Indian training institutions and companies, collaboration with Japanese partners may support the transfer of industrial knowledge, specialised skills and production practices. For Japan, the framework seeks to address human-resource shortages while strengthening professional, educational and research exchanges with India.

The Action Plan also recognises that sustainable mobility depends on more than technical qualifications. Japanese-language education, pre-departure preparation, employer engagement and on-arrival support are intended to improve candidates’ readiness for employment and facilitate their integration into Japanese workplaces. The proposed grievance-redressal arrangements are also relevant to the quality and safety of international employment pathways.

However, the extent to which these intended benefits have been realised remains to be established. The available government figures document earlier mobility under TITP and SSW and the institutional foundation created through JIMs and JECs, but they do not yet demonstrate the independent impact of the 2025 Action Plan. A more complete evaluation will require evidence on employment quality, wages, retention, skill acquisition, career progression, access across states and the experiences of workers and students. These indicators would help establish whether the framework is generating sustainable benefits for both countries.

EMERGING ISSUES

Despite its comprehensive design and aspirational targets, the Action Plan’s implementation raises questions concerning access to training, the quality of overseas employment, institutional coordination and the monitoring of outcomes. These concerns are particularly important because the framework relies on cooperation among multiple government agencies, training institutions, recruitment organisations and private-sector employers.

The scale of the proposed exchanges will require adequate Japanese-language teachers, accessible training institutions and sufficient examination capacity. Although the Action Plan envisages additional language-training and testing opportunities, their actual geographical distribution and capacity will determine whether candidates outside major educational and industrial centres can participate. Unequal access could limit the reach of the programme.
Matching Indian qualifications with Japanese occupational requirements requires sustained coordination between training institutions and employers. Without appropriate curricula, assessment standards and practical training, expanding candidate numbers may not necessarily translate into suitable employment.
Recruitment transparency and worker protection remain important. The expansion of international placements requires safeguards against misleading recruitment practices, excessive placement charges, contractual misunderstandings and inadequate workplace support. The effectiveness and accessibility of grievance-redressal mechanisms will therefore be significant.
The Action Plan involves multiple ministries, state governments, Japanese prefectures, companies and academic institutions. Clearly assigned responsibilities and reliable monitoring arrangements will be essential to avoid fragmented implementation. Finally, the absence of a consolidated financial allocation and publicly accessible progress indicators may complicate the assessment of institutional capacity and accountability.

WAY FORWARD

The effectiveness of the Action Plan will depend on translating its aspirational targets into measurable outcomes supported by transparent implementation arrangements. The immediate priorities should be to establish a common monitoring framework, expand accessible and industry-aligned training, strengthen worker protection, and improve coordination among Indian and Japanese institutions.

MEA and MSDE, in coordination with their Japanese counterparts and relevant implementing agencies, should develop a publicly accessible monitoring framework with annual reporting. Indicators should distinguish between educational visits, research exchanges, internships and long-term employment placements. Reports should distinguish between Indian personnel travelling to Japan and Japanese personnel travelling to India, while separately documenting educational visits, research exchanges, internships and long-term employment placements. The 50,000 target for Indian skilled and semi-skilled personnel travelling to Japan should be monitored as a distinct employment-oriented component within the broader target of 500,000 two-way personnel exchanges. Additional indicators should include candidates trained, assessed, recruited and placed, occupational categories, state-wise participation, employment retention and available information on wages, workplace conditions and grievance resolution.
Japanese-language education and occupational training should be expanded beyond major urban centres. MSDE, NSDC, state governments, universities, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Japanese employers should expand Japanese-language and occupational training beyond major urban centres. Employer consultations should inform curricula, practical assessments and certification pathways, while regional training provision should reflect demand across the relevant occupational categories. Training participation and examination access should be monitored to identify geographical and socioeconomic barriers to entry.
Worker protection must remain integral to mobility promotion. Relevant Indian and Japanese authorities should strengthen transparent recruitment, clear employment contracts, standardised pre-departure orientation, accessible grievance-redressal procedures and post-placement support. Monitoring should examine recruitment charges, wages, working conditions, retention and career progression wherever reliable data are available. These indicators would help assess the quality and sustainability of employment rather than relying solely on deployment numbers.

Finally, State–Prefecture partnerships and industry–academia collaboration should be used to align regional skill-development initiatives with employer demand in Japan. Clear responsibilities, regular consultations and publicly reported milestones can strengthen coordination among governments, employers and training institutions. By combining employment opportunities with reciprocal educational, scientific and technological exchanges, India and Japan can build a more sustainable human-resource partnership. The Action Plan’s long-term contribution will ultimately depend on whether its targets translate into accessible opportunities, quality employment, demonstrable skill development and lasting institutional cooperation.

SELECTED REFERENCES AND IMPORTANT LINKS

Prime Minister’s Office. (2025, August 29). 15th India-Japan annual summit joint statement: Partnership for security and prosperity of our next generation. Government of India.

https://share.google/SvQYT8yHESa7XkZTW

Prime Minister’s Office. (2018, October 29). India-Japan vision statement. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://share.google/RMiOhfQth8K7x0ePt

Prime Minister’s Office. (2025, August 29). 15th India-Japan annual summit joint statement: Partnership for security and prosperity of our next generation. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://share.google/WPJPQ5lQNKJuadv1Y

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2025, August 29). Action plan for India–Japan human resource exchange and cooperation https://share.google/ZhoOBcEaWdMbWvORF

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2016, March 16). Question No. 2991: Japanese visa facility to Indians [Unstarred question, Lok Sabha]. https://share.google/zVOCsJy0osoR8lxJe

Press Information Bureau. (2026, August 14). MSDE convenes India-Japan stakeholder consultation to strengthen skilling and workforce pathways between the two countries. Government of India. https://share.google/0PZkRDft7pojqHx3L

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2006, December 6). Q. 2073: Human exchange programme with Japan [Unstarred question, Lok Sabha]. https://share.google/nRsENHiKCG562U1Zm

DD News. (2025, August 29). India, Japan set target of 5 lakh personnel exchange in five years. https://share.google/LgLzdcj5bFQSOgoak

Taneja, N., & Joshi, S. (2026, January 15). India-Japan cooperation initiatives in human resource exchanges [Presentation]. Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Japan, and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

https://share.google/0oDpnZTCeU7fRDzoM

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2025, August 29). List of outcomes: Prime Minister’s visit to Japan (August 29–30, 2025).

https://share.google/IoAvhjLi7TnMbteEM

Indo-Japan Business Council. (2026, February 1). Beyond the numbers: Making sense of India–Japan’s human resource exchange ambition.

https://share.google/Txt5vjqOu49GhtAgE

Basu, P. (2025, September 3). India’s high-speed partnership with Japan. Observer Research Foundation. https://share.google/fqrp7CDamYwBbAIyQ

Embassy of India, Tokyo. (n.d.). India–Japan bilateral brief. Government of India.

https://share.google/GufNWGWL1J2W7ek4j

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. (2026, January 23). Year-End Review 2025: Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://share.google/BaLP5g2DWXvSFeJi7

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Anamika P K is a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI. She is a postgraduate in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad and a graduate of Ramjas College, University of Delhi. Her research interests include feminist politics, gender, International Relations, Women, Peace and Security, political economy, sustainability, and governance. She is particularly interested in evidence-based, interdisciplinary research and policy analysis that connects questions of power, inequality, and lived experiences with more inclusive, gender-responsive, and socially just policy and governance.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author sincerely expresses gratitude to the reviewers, Ninchen and Tanisha, IMPRI India and the editorial team for their valuable comments, constructive suggestions, and continuous guidance throughout the preparation of this article.