Sustaining Regional Livelihoods Despite Labor Shortages

ANDPAD is a cloud-based construction project management service providing all-in-one management of a wide range of functions from on-site efficiency to business operations improvement.

This is the final article outlining the key points in Japan’s New Direction of Economic and Industrial Policies. Maintaining the growth of the Japanese economy requires action to be taken nationwide to raise wages and to address labor shortages. Here we look at what steps are needed to bring about the necessary transformation of essential service industries that support regional livelihoods and social functions.

Essential service industries

Essential service industries refer to those that are indispensable for people’s daily lives, such as wholesale and retail, medicine and healthcare, transportation, and construction. Wages have stagnated in this sector due to the failure to improve worker productivity over the last 30 years. Labor shortages have become more prominent in recent years, raising the specter of a future in which these services can no longer be provided if nothing is done.

Advanced essential service industries

The key to solving these challenges is the shift to advanced essential service industries. Utilizing labor-saving equipment and digital services has the potential to raise worker productivity and lift wages up to levels closer to those of other industries.

First steps toward advanced essential services

Increasing numbers of companies are becoming a part of this industrial transformation. ANDPAD Inc. is developing and providing “ANDPAD”, which is a cloud-based construction project management service providing all-in-one management of a wide range of functions from on-site efficiency to business operations improvement. It has a wide-ranging suite of features covering everything from integrating the control of project information and related communication on work schedules, plans and so forth, up to digital transformation (DX) for the overall running of the company, involving such areas as client data and ordering systems. Utilizing ANDPAD greatly reduces working times and improves profitability.

In the field of healthcare, the social welfare corporation Zenkoukai has improved productivity by 40% over the national average by automating monitoring devices and caregiving records. The knowhow thus gained is available to other related organizations through a platform service called SCOP (Smart Care Operating Platform).

To further broaden this trend, METI will implement essential policy support to encourage industries with severe workforce shortages to invest proactively in labor-saving approaches and the training of human resources to make use of such approaches.

The SCOP platform service provided by Zenkou Research Institute to implement DX services in the front lines of caregiving.

Division in Charge

Industrial Structure Policy Division
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry