–Fewer People Quit for Other Openings on Month, Job Losses, Retirements Also Fall
–Jobs Up on Year for 9th Straight Month, Let by Manufacturing, Entertainment, Hotels/Restaurants
–Number of Unemployed Marks 2nd Straight Y/Y Rise
By Max Sato
(MaceNews) – Japanese payrolls posted their ninth straight year-over-year growth in April as the reopening of the economy boosted demand for consumer spending on services and manufacturing picked up while the unemployment rate eased to 2.6% from 2.8% in March, data released Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed.
Compared to the previous month, fewer people lost their jobs, retired, or quit to look for other openings, outpacing a slight increase in the number of those who began looking for work, and thus leading to lower unemployment. The unexpected uptick in the March jobless rate was caused mainly by an increase in the number of people leaving to look for better jobs. Some of those people appeared to have found work in April.
The government’s domestic travel discount program and widely eased public health rules have been supporting the tourism industry, which has also benefited from returning visitors from overseas.
The seasonally adjusted average unemployment rate stood at 2.6% in April, compared to the median economist forecast of 2.7%. It fell from 2.8% in March and matched February’s 2.6% but is above a three-year low of 2.4% hit in January. The jobless rate moved in tight ranges of 2.7% to 3.0% in 2021 and 2.5% to 2.8% in 2022.
The latest figure is below the recent high of 3.1% reached in October 2020 but is above 2.2% recorded in December 2019, just before the pandemic triggered a global economic slump.
In its monthly economic report released last week, the government maintained its assessment that employment conditions as “picking up.”
Compared to a year earlier, the number of employed rose 140,000 to an unadjusted 67.41 million in April for the ninth straight increase after rising 150,000 in March and 90,000 in February and surging 430,000 in January.
The number of unemployed rose 20,000 on the year to an unadjusted 1.90 million in April, after marking its first year-over-year rise in 21 months in March with a 130,000 jump and falling 60,000 in February. It has drifted down from a pandemic peak of 2.17 million in October 2020 but is still above 1.60 million at the beginning of 2020.
The overall employment increase in April from a year earlier was led by a sharp rise in the manufacturing sector for the third straight increase, a rebound in entertainment and continued gains in communications as well as the hotels, restaurants and bars category, which has been benefiting from the government subsidy for domestic traveling.
Jobs in the medical and welfare category slumped for the second straight month as new Covid cases have decreased. Employment in education support posted a sharp drop after being nearly flat. Jobs in the wholesale and retail industry dropped on the year for the fifth straight month. Employment at construction firms fell for the second straight month.