Japan sees first drop in job availability in four months

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the job-to-applicant ratio dropped marginally to 1.14 from 1.15 month-on-month in August, indicating that there were 114 job openings for every 100 job seekers.

From June to July, the ratio rose 0.02 percentage point before this latest fall.

Meanwhile, the jobless rate in August was 2.8%, unchanged from that in July. The rate fell 0.1 percentage point from June for the second consecutive monthly decline, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Throughout August, the state of emergency was in place in Tokyo and the southern island prefecture of Okinawa, where the measure was imposed in mid-July and late May, respectively.

The area covered by the state of emergency increased to cover 21 of Japan’s 47 prefectures by the end of August as the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus led to an upsurge in infection numbers.

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In August, the total number of unemployed people increased 10,000 month-on-month to 1.91 million, up for the first time in three months. Meanwhile, people in work dropped 320,000 to 66.76 million – the first decline in three months, according to The Mainichi.