Japan Jobless Rate:

 Article Source:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230331/p2g/00m/0bu/028000c

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's unemployment rate in February rose 0.2 point from the previous month to 2.6 percent, worsening for the first time in five months, as more people sought better working conditions amid an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Friday.

The job availability ratio for the reporting month fell 0.01 point from January to 1.34, worsening for the second straight month, separate government data showed. The ratio means there were 134 job openings for every 100 job seekers.

Ideas:

Whenever people quit their jobs or lose their jobs it might take time to find a new job which of course means the jobless rate will go up. 

And as people lose their jobs or quit their jobs and are looking for a job and maybe get unemployment benefits during that time, they are listed as unemployed compared to those who just give up and don't even register for unemployment benefits or they can't get benefits.

A 0.01 point decrease in jobs availability is not big decrease as there are still 134 jobs available for every job seeker.

But the question should be what kind of jobs are possible for job seekers; are they contract jobs, are they part-time jobs are are they full benefits jobs.

Article:

"The employment situation is gradually improving, although some industries have been struggling," said labor minister Katsunobu Kato, adding that the effects of rising prices need to be monitored.

The total number of unemployed stood at a seasonally adjusted 1.80 million people in February, up 7.8 percent from the previous month.

Ideas:

As the economy improves people start to look for other jobs if they don't like their present jobs, which of course means the unemployment rate might increase at the same time.

Some industries might still be experiencing material shortages and or logistics challenges which might be slowing down economic improvements. 

Of course maybe even some services type jobs are not being filled as when the pandemic hit and services type companies reduced their workers and now they can't re-fill those jobs again.

Increased prices of course can hamper or limit sales in some industries as they didn't have a choice and had to increase prices.

Article:

Among them, 760,000 people voluntarily left their jobs, up 11.8 percent, while 450,000 were dismissed, also up 7.1 percent.

"Some people may have begun looking for new jobs ahead of the new fiscal year or quit their jobs for higher wages," an official at the internal affairs ministry said.

Ideas:

Whenever there are 760,00 people who left their jobs they can only mean or might mean they want or need a better job with better benefits or wages.

Maybe the 450,00 who were dismissed might be in sectors or companies that went out of business as even in Japan there is a high rate of failure in some sectors or companies.

In any economy there is never 0 percent unemployment as people as some people are always looking for jobs, between jobs and so on.

Article:

As for job openings, the hotel and restaurant industry marked the sharpest increase of 37.2 percent from a year earlier, followed by a 23.7 percent jump in offers in the education sector.

There was only a growth of 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent in the manufacturing and construction industries, respectively.

Ideas:

The hotel and restaurant sector and the hotel services sector were the sectors that lost the most jobs during the pandemic so its logical that they would be the sectors that are adding more jobs.

But at the same time, are these industries able to find enough workers to fill all the jobs they lost during the pandemic.

Most likely the manufacturing and construction industries didn't lose a lot of jobs during the pandemic as such they haven't needed to add a lot of jobs .

What might have happened during the pandemic and since was the logistics and material shortages which might have some sectors might have lost some jobs and most likely they have been replaced by now.

Have a nice day and be safe!