Japan is running out of hands to care for its elderly.
The country has the oldest population on the planet after Monaco, and 1 in 6 people is already over 75. The Ministry of Labor estimates that by 2040 there will be a shortage of 570,000 caregivers, and almost no one wants the job: today, 70% of those who do it are women over 40, exhausted by shifts that require lifting entire bodies several times a day.
The company Visionary, in Nagoya, found an unconventional solution: recruiting bodybuilders. In the last year alone, they hired 168 people and already have more than 30 former athletes working at 25 centers in Ichinomiya. In Kochi, a family-run residence has added 10 mixed martial arts fighters who live and train right there, while in Tokio a day center has its own team of retired sumo wrestlers.
They pay them more than $1,600 a month and provide free accommodation, a gym, and protein supplements. Yusuke Niwa, director of Visionary, bet that physical strength could become the answer to a crisis no one else wanted to solve.