A projection by a Japanese research institute shows that Japan may face a shortage of more than 10 million workers in 2040, when children of postwar baby boomers will have turned 65 or older.

Recruit Works Institute, a research institute of a major information services company Recruit, released the forecast, which is based on future GDP estimates and proportions of workers by gender and generation.

By prefecture, it is projected that all prefectures except for Tokyo will suffer worker shortages. The rate of the labor shortages will be over 20 percent in 18 prefectures, or about one third of them.

The figure is expected to top 30 percent in prefectures such as Kyoto, Niigata and Nagano. While demand for labor will likely be high as they will have a certain economic scale, workers will be in short supply because of a declining birthrate coupled with an aging population.

On the other hand, labor shortages in Shimane, Kagawa and Toyama prefectures are forecast to be low because demand for workers will decline in these areas.

By occupation, the rate of labor shortage is predicted to be high among workers in the nursing care service at 25.3 percent, followed by sales clerks, drivers and construction workers.

Furuya Shoto, a researcher at the institute, said Japan's structural worker shortages will make the situation of local economies even worse. He went on to say that Japan will be unable to resolve the problem unless people change their mindset.