Japan's jobless rate down to 5.5% in August, 1st fall this year+

TOKYO, Oct. 2 Kyodo -
Japan's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent in August
after hitting an all-time high of 5.7 percent the previous month, the
government said Friday.

The rate unexpectedly fell for the first time since January, amid some positive
signs in the business activity of big firms. It was lower than the 5.8 percent
projected on average by economists Kyodo News surveyed.
But the improvement was largely due to a slower pace of decline in the number
of people losing their jobs and was not backed by a strong rise in the number
of new jobs available, a preliminary report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and Communications showed.
The ministry said Japan's employment environment ''remained severe.''
The number of jobholders stood at 62.96 million in August, down 1.09 million
from the year before, the 19th straight month of contraction.
The number of jobless people rose 890,000 from a year earlier to 3.61 million
for the 10th straight month of increase, the ministry said. Of the total, 1.24
million had been laid off, up 610,000 from a year ago.
In July, the number of jobless people grew by the largest figure ever -- 1.03
million, or 40.2 percent -- to push the unemployment rate up to the post-World
War II record of 5.7 percent.
Most economists had expected that the jobless rate would continue to climb in
August as recent figures have indicated manufacturers remain reluctant to make
investments or hire additional people even though many of their production
lines are operating at a much greater capacity than earlier this year.
According to data the labor ministry released Friday, there were only 42 job
offers for every 100 job seekers in August, unchanged from the previous month.
The ratio of job offers to job seekers, standing at a seasonally adjusted 0.42,
is the lowest on record.
The latest job figures were released a day after the Bank of Japan's closely
watched Tankan survey said Japanese business confidence improved in the three
months to September. It was the second straight quarter of improvement, marked
for the first time in nearly three years.
In August, the jobless rate for men fell 0.3 percentage point from the previous
month to 5.8 percent, and that for women dropped 0.1 point to 5.0 percent.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry data, the number of job
offers grew for the first time since May 2008, up 0.2 percent, and that of job
seekers rose 1.3 percent.
New job offers in the manufacturing industry continued to plummet, down 41.3
percent from a year earlier. But that was better than the 46.3 percent drop in
July.
==Kyodo
2009-10-02 23:55:46