在日フィリピン人の定住・永住層は15万人を超え、それは在日フィリピン人人口全体の4分の3をしめる。日本とフィリピンを還流移動するよりも、むしろ日本に定住して長期的な生活の安定とキャリアアップを考える人びとが増加した。一方、2004年の労働派遣法改正に伴い医療関連業務への人材派遣が解禁されたこともあり、以降、人材派遣会社等が相次いで在日フィリピン人向けホームヘルパー2級講座を開設してきた。2008年10月までにホームヘルパー2級を取得した在日フィリピン人は、およそ2000人余と推測される。
本稿では、上記の講座開設主体で、各地方で主要となる5社につき紹介した。それぞれ会社の成り立ちが違い、また講座開設への動機づけもさまざまだが、ここでは、現状として、在日外国人の介護人材育成という職業訓練には、行政よりもむしろ民間企業の人材派遣会社が大きな役割を担っていることを確認しておきたい。
介護施設や事業所が在日フィリピン人介護者の「良さ」としてアピールするのは、コミュニケーション能力、ホスピタリティ（献身性）、将来的な外国人介護者受入れへの基盤作り、の3点である。介護分野の人材不足は明らかで、介護現場はいずれ海外からの労働力を受入れざるを得ない。経済連携協定等で、外国から初めて日本に来る労働者と介護現場との橋渡しとなる人材として、在日フィリピン人ケア労働者が注目されていると言えよう。

As of 2007, more than 150,000 or around 75% of the whole population of the registered Filipinos hold the immigration status of permanent or long-term residence in Japan. At this time they are more likely to focus on developing their occupational career for making their life more stable and meaningful here rather than shuttling between the two countries. On the other hand, the liberalization of the workers dispatch market in Japan allowed the medical-related labor market to accept temporary (haken) workers in line with the revision of the Worker Dispatch Law in 2004. Since then the manpower agents turned their interest to hire Filipino migrants with permanent/long-term visa status to dispatch to the caregiving industry by offering them a licensing course for caregivers (“Home-Helper Level 2”) with the curriculum specially designed for migrants. According to the author’s estimate, a total of around 2,000 Filipinos in Japan have acquired above license by the end of October 2008.
In this paper, major 5 manpower agents in various regions of Japan have been analyzed. The company’s background as well as their motivation for the new challenge differs, but the author likes to point out at this time that the private sector (manpower agents) instead of government sector plays an important role in the human resource development of Filipino migrants especially in the field of caregiving.
In their introduction of the new type of workers, the agents emphasize the positive nature of Filipino caregivers as “highly communicative”, “hospitable”, and “potential leaders for the newly arriving foreign caregivers”. The manpower shortage in the caregiving industry is obvious and in near future they cannot avoid hiring foreign caregivers for example under the Economic Partnership Agreement schemes. Now the Filipinos who acquired the license and experienced in the industry are coming to the front to become bridges between the Japanese facility operators/workers and the newly arriving foreign caregivers.