Japan is currently facing a labour crisis, largely due to the declining birth-rate. Hi-tech companies are also suffering from the shortfall of homegrown talent, and intense competition from the United States, Europe China and India; they are now looking to “frontier” markets such as Mongolia.

Advertising agency Dentsu recently held a briefing event in Mongolia in order to provide information to technology engineering graduates about opportunities in Japan.

Three Japanese-style technical colleges opened in Mongolia in 2014, and a job fair was recently held in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, for the 140 students graduating in May. Job hunters majoring in artificial intelligence and other fields listened to recruiting pitches from 29 companies from Japan and elsewhere.

The students seemed particularly interested in the opportunities at a development centre set up by Data Artist, Dentsu’s AI subsidiary. Agchbayar Amarsanaa, a Mongolian mathematician and bronze medal winner at the International Mathematical Olympiad, leads the company. Dentsu Data Artist Mongol can refer hundreds of top-notch people from the National University of Mongolia, Agchbayar’s alma mater, and other schools, to Japanese clients, he said proudly.

Mongolia is fast becoming a maths powerhouse, rising in an international mathematics competition for high school students from 50^th place in 2010 to 28^th in 2018, on par with India. As medalists in international mathematics and other academic competitions are exempt from university entrance exams, high school mathematics clubs are more popular than sports clubs.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry forecasts that Japan will face a shortage of up to 550,000 engineers in cutting-edge IT by 2030.

Another advantage for Japanese employers is Mongolians’ positive views of Japan. One out of a 1,000 Mongolians travels to Japan to study, making it likely that those employed by Japanese companies will stick around.