Japan February Unemployment Slips to 2.7% But Job Creation Slow

By Max Sato

(MaceNews) – Job creation in Japan remained sluggish in February compared to a year earlier but the unemployment rate fell from January as job cuts eased and fewer people began looking for work, data released Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed.

The seasonally adjusted average unemployment rate fell to 2.7% in February from 2.8% in January, moving in a tight range following 2.7% in December and 2.8% in November. It was slightly lower than the median economist forecast for 2.8%.

The latest figure was below the recent high of 3.1% hit in October 2020 but still well above 2.2% recorded in December 2019, just before the pandemic triggered a global slump.

The number of employed stood at 66.93 million in February, unchanged from January, when it fell 190,000 from December, while the number of unemployed slipped 30,000 (1.6%) to 1.88 million after rising 40,000 (2.1%) the previous month.

The number of people who left for other openings rose 30,000 (4.2%) in February after gaining 10,000 (1.4%) in January while the number of those who lost their jobs or retired climbed 10,000 (1.7%) after rising 60,000 (11.3%) the previous month. The number of people who began looking for work dropped 40,000 (8.2%) after being unchanged.

Compared to a year earlier, the number of employed dipped 350,000 to 66.58 million in February, marking the fifth straight decline after dropping 320,000 in January.

The wholesale and retail industry saw sharper declines in the numbers of workers from a year earlier, in line with the first year-on-year drop in five months in department store sales in February amid heavy snow in some areas and an Omicron-led spike in Covid cases. Hotels, restaurants, and bars as well as the manufacturing sector showed payroll increases from February 2021, when the government maintained Covid restrictions under a state of emergency for some prefectures imposed the previous month.

The number of unemployed fell 150,000 on the year to 1.80 million in February, marking the eighth straight month of decline after a decrease of 140,000 the previous month.

The government has maintained its view that employment conditions are “picking up in some components such as job offers, while weakness remains due to the influence of the infectious disease,” according to its monthly economic report for March released last week.