日本介護保險制度已邁入10 週年。對於即將開辦長期照護保險的台灣而言，日本經驗必有許多值得我國借鏡之處，照顧專業發展便是其中之一。日本實施介護保險後，照顧人力發生了革命性的變化：年輕化、職種多元化、全面考試證照化等。然而，卻也因介護保險制度的設計，導致薪資低、流動率高以及僱用兼職化，甚至人力不足等問題。因此，近年來，日本緊急推動人才確保對策。本文即針對近年來日本照顧專業的發展趨勢、現況、課題以及所提之對策進行探討，並從中提出以下建議：多元的人才確保對策、照顧人才的專業成長與職涯提升、照顧專業薪資宜採介護報酬與稅收合併之設計、改善照顧專業形象，提升其社會地位等，以作為我國參考。另一方面，日本政府基於EPA 等協定，開放外籍人力投入照顧領域，其發展亦值得關注。

Long-term care insurance has been practiced for over 10 years in Japan. Their experience is of value, as we are to establish a long-term care insurance system in Taiwan. One example is that it would have much influence upon our long-term care profession. The general situation of long-term care manpower has been revolutionized in Japan since its insurance policy put in place: younger,versatile professional category, all licensed staff, etc. However, the fact that care worker's salary is so controlled and limited by the insurance resulted in low pay, high turnover rate, part-time workers, and even short of staff, etc. Therefore, Japan has recently making an urgent countermeasure to ensure the related manpower in the field. The following suggestions are made based on the development and the above mentioned limitations of long-term care insurance profession in Japan: a multi-facet counterplot to ensure the quantity and quality of the man-power, care worker's professional and career development, the salary of care workers partly from government resource besides from insurance policy, improve the image and social status of care workers, etc.On the other hand, we should pay our much attention to the development of Japan to open foreign care worker policy based on EPA agreement.