It was reported that Japan’s unemployment rate fell to 2.5% in October from 2.6% a month earlier, improving for the second consecutive month, as the number of job seekers declined with more people finding employment or giving up looking for work, the internal affairs ministry said.
The job availability ratio edged up 0.01 point from September to 1.30, indicating 130 job openings for every 100 job seekers, also reflecting the decline in people looking for work, according to separate data.
Among new job openings in October, the accommodation and food services sector rose 2.2% from a year earlier on the back of a recovery in inbound tourism, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Employment in the manufacturing and construction sectors, however, declined 10.6% and 6.2%, respectively, with high material prices increasing costs.
“Japan’s labour market, in general, has been on a tightening trend amid labour shortages, as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic,” said Saisuke Sakai, a senior economist at Mizuho Research & Technologies.
He also noted that the service sector continues to seek more workers with the number of inbound tourists, except those from China, recovering to pre-pandemic levels.
The total number of people with jobs fell 0.1% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted 67.49 million. In contrast, the number of unemployed people stood at 1.75 million, down 1.1% from the previous month, data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed.
Among them, 770,000 people voluntarily left their jobs, up 1.3%, while 370,000 people left employment due to other reasons, such as dismissal or retirement, down 2.6% from the previous month.
The unemployment rate stood at 2.6% for men, down 0.2 points from the previous month, while the rate for women increased 0.2 point to 2.5% as more women entered the labour market, the internal affairs ministry explained.
The number of people in the accommodation and food service sector stood at 4.08 million in October, up 4.6% from a year earlier and marking the biggest gain among the surveyed sectors, while 10.53 million people were employed in manufacturing, unchanged from a year earlier. – Japan Times
