Japan Aug. Jobless Rate: Updated Oct. 5, 2025

Japan's Aug. jobless rate rises to 2.6%, highest in 13 months

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251003/p2g/00m/0bu/013000c

Ideas

Japan's unemployment rate is one of the lowest among advanced economies but at the present 

time Japan has a major labor shortage which makes it much easier for workers to leave their 

present jobs and look for either better working conditions or better pay.

At the same time, for a very long time, until just recently, it was very difficult for workers to

leave their jobs due to the fact that it took a long time to find a new job.

The unemployment in Japan needs to be taken with a grain of salt as its quite possible that its still taking a 

long time to find a job in Japan even though people have quit their present or past jobs which makes the 

unemployment look worse than it really is.

And then is the possibility that some workers in Japan just couldn't stand their jobs and felt it was better to

go on unemployment than continue in a job they didn't like.

Budgetary constraints being felt my large Japanese companies might be a major in Japan as maybe large companies have had to spend a lot on wage increases for their existing workers and now they don't have any more funds left to hire new workers.

And if its a challenge for large companies its probably even worse for small and mid-size companies that don't have the same resources as large companies to hire any new workers and offer good wage increases at the same time.

Just because there are 120 job opening for 100 job seekers doesn't mean the 120 jobs are good jobs that workers are looking for.

For example some or many of the 120 jobs might be related to jobs from small and mid-size companies that tend to have lower wage offerings than the large name-brand companies in Japan, so there not actually be 120 new jobs offering from large Japanese companies that offer the highest wages.

There is always going to a discrepancy between jobs that have declined and jobs that grew as sometimes reporting of jobs might be late or not reported as all.

There is/was, in any economy, where the number of those with jobs is always going to be larger than reported as again reporting of jobs being added and jobs being lost and those quitting is always in a flux due to reporting errors.

For a very long time, layoffs in Japan were almost unheard of as companies used to never layoff workers but as Japan has become more westernized and are now focused on shareholders and no longer focused on the good of employees they are beginning to use layoffs as a way to maximize shareholder value over the good of employees.

The lifestyle and entertainment sectors are service type jobs and service type jobs usually have lower profits margins and if they gave wage increase the past two fiscal years they probably don't have any more room to hire any new workers and might actually be losing workers to other companies that offer higher wages.

And that same with the wholesale and retail companies, which again are service type companies and can't afford to really hire any new workers as they to either hired enough already and or their material, energy, and labor costs are too much for the profits margins at the present time.

And yes, Japan recently increased the minimum wage which again, meant many of the service type companies which usually have thinner profit margins and rely on minimum wage type workers a lot maybe can't afford any more workers and are assessing the minimum wage increase to see if they need to layoff workers and or can actually higher more workers.

Its very unfortunate that some workers in Japan have to rely on the minimum wage only for a living. It's one thing if its a university student working at a fast-food place but it's a completely different situation if it's a single mother with a child who has to rely on the minimum wage to live on.

Have a nice day!