THE GREAT DEFLATION; Despite Shortage, Japan Keeps A High Wall for Foreign Labor.

KASHIWA, Japan -- Maria Fransiska, a young, hard-working nurse from Indonesia, is just the kind of worker Japan would seem to need to replenish its aging work force. But Ms. Fransiska, 26, is having to fight to stay. To extend her three-year stint at a hospital outside Tokyo, she must pass a standardized nursing exam administered in Japanese, a test so difficult that only 3 of the 600 nurses brought here from Indonesia and the Philippines since 2007 have passed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]