MANILA - Filipinos may get a third of the 350,000 available jobs that Japan is expected to open to foreign nationals next month, the Department of Labor said Sunday.

“Our workers may get at least 30 percent of available jobs to foreign nationals,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said in a statement.

DOLE said it will sign a memorandum of cooperation on Tuesday in Tokyo with Japan’s Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Health, Labor and Welfare and the National Police Agency.

The agreement will govern the deployment of “specified skilled workers,” Bello said.

“This agreement, aside from providing better opportunities, is geared toward ensuring their protection by means of implementing a basic framework that will promote smooth and proper mechanisms in sending, accepting, and residence management of incoming specified skilled workers in Japan,” he added.

Japan will need skilled workers in the fields of health care, building maintenance, food services, industrial machinery, electronics, food manufacturing, agriculture, hospitality, construction, shipbuilding, fisheries and aquaculture, parts and tooling and aviation.

Japan started relaxing visa requirements for Filipinos last year.

Under a recently-signed trade agreement, Japan is also allowing skilled workers, professionals and businessmen from the Philippines to stay up to 5 years, and bring along their spouses and children.

Skilled workers and professionals eyeing jobs in Japan, however, are required to pass a technical and language skills examination.