
The small Japanese city Iga, the birthplace of the ninja, is suffering from a dwindling resource: its ninja population is on the decline. In an episode of NPRโs โPlanet Moneyโ podcast, Sally Herships visited Iga, a small city in central Japan that claims to be the birthplace of the ninja. The city with a population of 100,000 (many of them ninjas, we assume) is not faring too well as a whole, reports Business Insider.
Iga is losing young people who donโt want to live in the rural countryside, so to revive the local economy, the mayor of Iga, Sakae Okamoto, is promoting the cityโs ninja heritage with the aim of drawing more tourists.
โRight now in Iga, we are working very hard to promote ninja tourism and get the most economic outcome,โ Okamoto told Herships. โFor example, we hold this ninja festival between late April to around the beginning of May. During this period visitors and also local people come here. Everybody will be dressed like a ninja and walks around and enjoys themselves โ but recently I feel that itโs not enough.โ

While Japan is experiencing a major tourist boom and many cities are benefitting economically from the influx of tourists, rural ones like Iga are apparently being left out. Iga needs to attract labor forces to work and live in the rural city as the ninja tourism scheme is extended which means not just builders and planners but also ninjas themselves.
โThereโs a ninja shortage,โ Herships says, โor โ to be accurate โ a ninja-performer shortage.โ

This issue is especially difficult given Japanโs extremely low unemployment rate, which is just 2.5%. It is therefore hard to find workers in Japan, let alone highly specialized ninjas.
โBut this job does have a lot to offer,โ Herships says. โFirst of all, the pay is quite competitive. Today, ninjas can earn anything from $23,000 to about $85,000 โ which is a really solid salary, and in fact, a lot more than real ninjas used to earn in medieval Japan.โ
So, just so weโre all on the same page: the town of Iga is willing to pay $85,000 to anyone who wants to become a ninja? Where do I signโฆ?
So where do we go to train as a Ninja (Shinobi) as well as other things too.
Who do I contact here to work as a paid ninja ?