It's set to be a massive change for a country that was still up until recently 97.5% ethnic Japanese, according to the CIA World Factbook.

A Bloomberg report details how rapidly declining native birth rates, an aging society and a chronic labor shortage is fueling the importation of millions of foreigners who "are changing the face of Japan."

The number of foreign workers in Japan has now exceeded 2 million, a 12.4% increase on 2022. The East Asian country needs at least 647,000 working-age immigrants per year to meet its 11 million worker shortage by 2040.

"Japan is entering an era of mass foreign immigration," said Junji Ikeda, president of Saikaikyo, a Hiroshima-based agency that sources and supervises foreign workers. "Incremental adjustments will not suffice," he added.

Under one program alone, 820,000 migrants will be admitted to work in the transportation and logistics sectors, a doubling of the previously agreed number, in order "to make efforts to realize an inclusive society," according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.

While the process is being implemented under 'skilled worker visas', the actual roles migrants will fill include taxi drivers, bus drivers and factory workers.

The service industry will also be increasingly filled with foreign migrants, who will subsequently be allowed to bring their families to stay in Japan indefinitely.

The Economist reports that a "glimpse at Japan's future" looks like convenience stores being staffed overwhelmingly by migrants, highlighting "the importance of immigration."

The news outlet cites one such 7-Eleven store in central Tokyo where "all the staff are Burmese."