TOKYO: Japan’s job availability ratio in 2020 logged the sharpest drop since 1975, while the average unemployment rate marked the first rise in 11 years, highlighting the magnitude of the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic on workers, government data showed Friday.
The job availability ratio fell 0.42 point to 1.18, the fastest pace since a 0.59 point drop in 1975 recorded in the wake of the 1973 global oil crisis, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. It means there were 118 job openings for every 100 job seekers, report agencies.
The pace of decline surpassed the 0.41 point slip logged in 2009 following the global financial crisis, with the figure hitting the lowest level since 1.09 in 2014, the labor ministry said.
The annual jobless rate stood at 2.8 percent in 2020, up 0.4 percentage point from the previous year to log the first increase since 2009, when it climbed 1.1 points to 5.1 percent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The number of unemployed rose 290,000 to 1.91 million, also the first increase in 11 years. The number of people in work fell 480,000 to 66.76 million, down for the first time in eight years.
“The data showed a continued significant impact from the coronavirus pandemic (on the labor market). We will closely monitor developments,” said Ryota Takeda, minister of internal affairs and communications.
Of those with jobs, 20.90 million were nonregular employees, falling 750,000 from the previous year and down for the first time since comparable data became available in 2014, amid an increase in layoffs and non-renewal of work contracts by companies hit by the pandemic.
Until the pandemic, the number of nonregular workers had been on the rise in Japan with more women and elderly people entering the labor market, with the country facing severe manpower shortages in recent years amid the rapid aging of the population.
Of the people in work, 35.39 million were regular workers, rising 360,000 from a year earlier and up for the sixth year in a row.As another indication of the virus impact, the number of furloughed employees surged by 800,000 to 2.56 million, a record high since comparable data became available in 1968. The annual growth was also the steepest ever.
By sector, the number of workers in the services industry including hotels and restaurants declined by 290,000 to 3.91 million, by far the sharpest drop among all industries, as fears of virus infections made consumers hesitant to dine out and take trips. The pandemic took a heavy toll on the world’s third-largest economy throughout last year.
The government’s first state of emergency, declared nationwide over the virus from April to May with requests for people to stay home and nonessential businesses to suspend operations, triggered the country’s worst recession on record.
In the April-June period, the Japanese economy contracted an annualized real 29.2 percent from the previous quarter.
