Japan’s unemployment rate will fall for the first time in five months as economy rallies

Japan’s unemployment rate rose to 2.9% in November, falling for the first time in five months in a sign that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the labor market is easing, showed government data Friday.

Separate data from the ministry of labor showed that the ratio of job opportunity in the reporting month improved to 1.06 from 1.04 in the previous month, up for the second straight month. The ratio means that there were 106 job openings in November for every 100 jobseekers.

Unemployment fell from 3.1% in October, down for the first time since falling by 0.1 points from the previous month to 2.8% in June, when economic activity began following a crisis outbreak on the virus in late May .

The unemployment rate returned to below 3% for the first time since July, when the figure was 2.9%, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

But the rate is still higher than the 2.4% recorded in February, when the country had not yet seen any major impact from the pandemic. A resurgence of new virus cases since November has also set the scene for a slump in the world’s third-largest economy.

“The number of infections started to rise around mid-November, so we are not sure if the figure will recover,” a government official told reporters. “At the very least, we can’t say that the unemployment rate has gone to rock level. ”

The number of seasonally adjusted unemployed fell 160,000 from October to 1.98 million after surpassing 2 million for three months in a row since August. Of the total, 690,000 people left their jobs voluntarily, down 140,000 from a month earlier, and 610,000 were laid off, down 80,000, and 480,000 were new jobseekers, up 50,000.

The number of people in work rose by 430,000 from the previous month to 67.01 million, up for the second month in a row, following a rise of 30,000 in October.

The unemployment rate for men fell 0.2 points from the previous month to 3.2%, while the rate for women was down 0.3 points to 2.4%.

“In November, the service industry was relatively fast as a result of the Go To Travel initiative, which improved unemployment in the region,” said Naoko Ogata, senior economist at the Apan Research Institute. a government subsidy program aimed at helping the domestic tourism industry hit by a virus.

But Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced earlier this month that the nationwide campaign would be temporarily postponed at the end of the year and the New Year holidays – the busiest time for service providers. Japanese – among the resurgence of COVID-19 diseases. Ogata said this could be a negative for December.

“From now on, the employment data will again move between development and decline in line with future developments in the spread of the virus,” Ogata said.