Ideas:
Japan has one of the lowest unemployment rates among advanced nations as now there is a supposed tight labor market, more people are getting jobs and or able to change jobs much easier than before.
An economy will never have zero percent unemployment as there are always going to be eligible workers in and out of the job market related to lay-offs, workers quitting, some retired people who later change their mind and re-enter the job market and so on.
Even though there was a record high for employed people Japan still suffers to with a so-called labor shortage and maybe there are some sectors or jobs that Japanese people just don't want to do.
Its like in South Korea, where there are some jobs such as some manufacturing jobs in small companies and or in the farm sector that South Korean workers just won't do so South Korea has to bring in foreign labor or do those kind of jobs.
But it might be the same in the US related to some sectors which can't afford or won't pay high enough wages to get US workers so the have to rely on foreigners and unfortunately illegal aliens to do the work.
Yes as more opportunities are now available for women in the Japanese workforce and of course as inflation has reduced the disposable incomes of Japanese households more women now need to work to make ends meet.
And even more there are more jobs available for the elderly as they either can't afford to retire and or just want to keep working to remain healthy. But at the same time it seems there are many more elderly workers in Japan than some other economies and that might be a sign of how healthy Japanese citizens are compared to other citizens in other countries.
Yes, as in most labor markets or economies there are the unemployed who willing to work and are included as they are part of those who are unemployed but want to work but haven't been able to find work yet.
And yes, there are always positives and negatives in any economic situation such at an economies labor market, which might have some blind spots that might cause some or many to not be employed.
And yes, while an increase in wages is a positive for the Japanese economy at the same time inflation has continued on in Japan which again, as eroded the disposable income of Japanese households.
And there there is the idea that it it estimated that up to to 70 percent of the Japanese workforce don't work for large name-brand companies but small and mid-size companies which can't afford to pay or won't pay the same wage increases that the large companies pay which means again up to 70 percent of Japanese workers might have lower disposable incomes compared to those who work in the large companies in Japan.
Back in the day, maybe yes, maybe no, Japan rarely has layoffs or those who were dismissed except for maybe those working for small and mid-size companies that went out of business.
But today, with Japanese companies and the Japanese economy adapting more western style work concepts lay-offs and those being dismissed seem to be more common today than before.
And up to 750,000 left their job voluntarily is a good indication that there are a lot of jobs out there in job market and workers are taking advantage of the fact that they can easily find a new job and or they want a job with a higher wage due to the continued inflation challenge in Japan.
While 1.22 jobs are available or 122 jobs for every 100 workers might sound positive it must be remembered just what kinds of jobs are available for workers.
Its quite possible that some or many of the best jobs might have already been filled and those looking for jobs are left with those jobs in small and mid-size companies that either can't afford the kind of wages that workers are looking for or won't pay or increase their wages to get new workers.
Yes, the minimum wage situation might be a negative for most economies except of course for some or many of the EU countries which tend to have better working conditions including better wage for those at the lower end the wage scale.
Japan is now experiencing what South Korea experienced back around 2015 to 2020 as the South Korean government implemented a series of yearly step by step minimum wage increase as a way to lesson the challenges for small and mid-size companies but in the end it was not that much of a success.
What happened was many of the small and mid-size companies, as a way to maintain their profit margins, started laying-off workers, reducing the hours of part-time or low wage workers, reduced the hiring of new workers, and in some case started using robots and or automated pay systems in store to cut costs.
An increase of 0.01 points is not that much or could be considered in the range of statistical variance as that is not much of a real change in jobs availability for any economy.
As far as jobs opening in the education sector that easily can be attributed to after school tutoring companies increasing the number of tutors as Japanese households wanted more tutoring for their children related to the exams needed to get into private schools and or to get into more prestigious universities in Japan.
For the manufacturing sector its quite possible as the US tariff situation seems to have lessened or the affect have lessened more manufacturing companies are now hiring workers to meet the demands for their products.
And or as there is a labor shortage in Japan, manufacturing companies have increased their wages, as needed, to get more workers as some Japanese workers don't want to work in the manufacturing sector so companies had to increase their wages in order to be the workers they need.
It's quite possible, as with other economies too, many information and communication companies in Japan increased the number of worker they had to meet the demands for their services, but now, as with other economies, many information and communication companies are beginning or have already laid-off many of the workers that were needed during the pandemic, such as Zoom being the prime example and just recently Amazon has laid-off a lot workers too.
For the hotel and restaurant sector its possible too that they over-hired just after the pandemic and as the surge of foreign visitors keep increasing hotels and restaurants continued to hire new workers but now due to increased material and energy costs compromising their profits margins they have ceased hiring new workers and or even began to lay-off workers.
Have a nice day!
