Japan's Job Availability:

Article Source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220201/p2g/00m/0bu/036000c

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's job availability ratio fell for the third straight year in 2021 as companies continued to feel the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and offered fewer job openings, government data showed Tuesday.

The ratio stood at 1.13, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. While that still meant 113 openings for every 100 job seekers, it was down 0.05 point from the previous year, following a 0.42 point plunge in 2020.

The number of job seekers grew 6.6 percent last year to 1.9 million, including full-time homemakers trying to make up for falling family incomes due to the economic fallout from the pandemic. Job offers, meanwhile, only increased 1.6 percent to 2.2 million.

Ideas:

The number of jobs available in Japan is still a lot at 113 jobs for every 100 job seekers. The real question is what kind of jobs are really available. Are they jobs with good salaries and benefits or are they temporary or contract jobs that might not provide the benefits job seekers are looking for.

Its significant that homemakers are trying to enter the workforce because of falling family incomes. So what is the reason for falling family incomes. Is it because of inflation related to an increase in food and supermarket prices. Is it becasue of home energy prices have increased. Is it because of gasoline prices have been increasing. Or is it because of layoffs in some industries that are effecting famalies.

So 1.9 million job seekers in Japan. What is the reason for so many job seekers. Again is it because of layoffs related to the pandemic. Is it because some or many people have planned to change jobs all along and have just been waiting for the right time to change jobs. 

Job offers might be a 2.2 million but again what kinds of jobs are being offered at this time. Are good paying jobs with good benefits. And are they the kinds of jobs people want or need. The days of companies offering just any jobs is gone in the 21st century as the younger generations are not willing to work like the grandparents or even their parents.

So companies need to be aware of what the younger generations are looking for in jobs. Such as the idea they might not want to work from 9 to 9 everynight like the older generations did. They might not want to go out to drinking parties or dinners like the older generations did. And they might not want to wait until they are 40 or older to get promotions in the company. So companies need to be aware of what the younger generations want and need to get the best talent out there.

And then there is now the idea that maybe some workers don't want or aren't willing to sit at a desk from 9 to 6 everyday and want to work from home too.

Article:

The labor market was swayed by the pandemic in 2021 as surging infections prompted the government to repeatedly put Tokyo and other areas under states of emergency that requested residents to refrain from non-essential outings and eateries to close earlier.

The country's jobless rate in 2021 stood at 2.8 percent, unchanged from the previous year but worse than the 2.4 percent rate in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The average number of unemployed people climbed 20,000 from a year earlier to 1.9 million, increasing for the second straight year.

Ideas:

The Japan labor market most likely was not hit as hard as maybe other economies were because of the labor law situations that make it hard to layoff workers. For example one strategy that companies have used is to transfer workers from one area of the company to another area of a company.

Another strategy that companies use is to lend out workers to other companies that need workers in some areas. This seems to have been a common practice among Japanese companies. Of course a question might be is just how qualified are some workers to move to another company for a short time.

The jobless rate in any country is never going to be 0 percent as there is always going to be some kind of unemployment in every society. Sometimes its related to a job structural problem, meaning the job skills of some workers don't fit the jobs available. Sometimes its related ot some changing jobs and it takes time to find an new job. And unfortunately it relates to some who just don't want to work and have given up finding a job. 

But most labor measurements don't include those who have lost hope and given up in the unemployment statistics. Only those who are presistent in trying to find a job are included.

So the the jobless rate in Japan could be much higher if everyone was include.

Article:

Nonregular workers, many of whom were employed in the restaurant industry, a sector hit hard by the pandemic, fell 260,000 to 20.6 million, down for the second consecutive year.

Workers in the accommodation and restaurant sector totaled 3.7 million, the smallest number since comparable data became available in 2002.

"With on-and-off restrictions, the eating out sector was unable to fully recover its workforce," said Naoko Ogata, a senior economist at the Japan Research Institute.

Ideas:

Nonregular workers, unfortunately, are becoming more common in Japan as companies turn more western and try to reduce costs and give little or no benefits to nonregular workers.

Its an unfortunate situation that suggest that up to 30 percent of the Japanese workforce is made up of nonregular workers.

Its a very unfortunate situation that the services sector, where most of the nonregular workers work in, are the ones who feel the pandemic situation the most. 

They should be the ones that should be given the most support from the Japanese government along with companies and businesses they work for to keep in with the companies, as much as possible. 

They most likely don't have the same kind of salaries as the big company employees have a don't have the same benefits and most likely are living paycheck to paycheck or were before the were laidoff because of the pandemic

Hopefully as the pandemic begins to slow down the hotels, restaurants, and other places will bring back their nonregular workers if they want to return to their former jobs.

Article:

In December alone, the job-to-applicant ratio improved to 1.16 from the previous month's 1.15. The unemployment rate fell to 2.7 percent from 2.8 percent in November after the latest state of emergency was fully lifted in October.

The lodging and eatery sector showed some recovery.

Although the number of workers in the sector dropped 30,000 from a year before, the pace of decline slowed from 190,000 and 440,000 drops in November and October, respectively.

Ideas:

Any kind of improvement in service sector jobs is good but it might take most of the spring or even into the summer to see significant improvements in the services sector.

Restaurants might come back faster than the hotel industry as people get out and about more and more. 

But the hotel industry might take a longer time to recover as the Go to Travel program has not restarted yet. And then there is the idea of international tourism which hotel took a big hit on as the thousands of Chinese which the hotel sector became heavily reliant on are not going to come back quickly. 

International tourists of course are ready and willing to travel but countries have to be willing to open their borders. Many in the EU, before the Ukraine crisis were beginning to open up.

But Japan hasn't opened up to international tourism just yet, and China for example might not be allowing is citizens to travel just yet, except for maybe to the US and EU for business travel.

Article:

The outlook remains uncertain, however, as the country has been facing a resurgence of coronavirus cases, with most areas of the country again under a quasi-state of emergency mainly to prevent the spread of the virus at eateries.

With the fresh restrictions in place, "more people are expected to refrain from going out and the recovery (of the labor market) will slow," Ogata said.

Ideas:

The virus situation will probably on and off again for some time which means the Japanese economy is not going to get back to any kind of pre-pandemic level just yet.

While the omicron virus might not be as severe for some people, unfortunately for others they aren't so luckly with severe cases and even deaths in some cases.

So maybe its a little too early to call the omicron situation just another flu virus just yet.

And most likely the present omicron situation is going to force some companies to refrain from hiring like the would for the start of the fiscal year in April 2022.

But over time, if the omicron situation does begin to receded we could see a surge in hiring and a surge in more people out and about, as people might feel they have had enough and want to just get back to some kind of normal especially as the spring months are approaching.

Especially as more and more people in Japan get the booster shots and feel good about going out.

Have a nice day and be safe!