Unemployment rate hits 2-year high….

And this photo of a homeless guy pulling a junk cart is being used in the AFP article about the rising unemployment rate:

the face of unemployment in Japan

The number of unemployed people increased by 230,000 from a year earlier to a total of 2.72 million.

The labour ministry said in a separate report that there were only 86 job opportunities for every 100 job seekers. It was the ninth straight month that the number of job hunters exceeded the number of job offers.

7 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - September 30, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags: japan, unemployment

LB

Wow. 4.2% unemployment. The US was 6.1% last month (has the US ever been under 5%? I don’t recall it ever getting that low, and I have seen it over 10% in the Northeast growing up…), UK was 5.5% over the summer, France is over 7%, Germany over 8%…

We could go on and on, but 4% is actually pretty damn good. The rate may be going up, but folks here have nothing to worry about – of course they will anyway as the nightly news screams “UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT RECORD HIGHS! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!”

People need perspective.

ZoneDaiatlas

I do believe the lowerst the unemployment rate the US has ever been was 4.9% and that was maybe 2 or 3 years ago…

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

If 100 people are looking for jobs but only 86 of them can find them, doesn’t that mean the unemployment rate for this “9th straight month” is currently 14%? 14 out of 100 people are not finding employment. What is the time line that must pass in order for the figure to be a part of the stated 4.2% unemployment rate? I need someone qualified to put this in layman’s terms for me.

http://www.japaneconomynews.com/ Ken

Alex,

Most “job seekers” are already employed. Those 86 offers are, for the most, part being offered to people who are looking to change jobs.

86 offers per 100 seekers is very low – the figure was about 102 per 100 in Tokyo two years ago.

The unemployment rate is very different. The United States counts it as the percentage of the work force who has been unemployed for 15 weeks or longer – this is known as the U1 rate in the US. These rates are conducted by sample survey in both the US and Japan, and not by census, which means their accuracy can be brought into question.

Japan’s method of calculation makes it much easier for one to be “outside the labor force” and thus no longer counted on the roll of the unemployed, which leads many to think that Japan’s figures are kept low due to data manipulation.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

So there’s a latent turnover rate to be accounted for. That makes sense. From those 86 job seekers, a few formerly occupied positions open up for the 14 who weren’t able to land one of the initial 100 positions, right?

Thanks for the explanation Ken!

http://www.japaneconomynews.com/ Ken

From those 86 job seekers, a few formerly occupied positions open up for the 14 who weren’t able to land one of the initial 100 positions, right?

Some positions do open up. But how many? it’s impossible to tell, especially now. 403 construction firms went bankrupt in Japan in August alone, and we’re seeing just over one real estate firm go bankrupt every day. Over 13,000 people lost jobs in August due to bankruptcy, so those jobs aren’t opening up.

Also, the 86 job offers per 100 candidates does not mean that those offers were taken – some are left on the table, but how many? And, some folks get more than one offer. It gets really tough to draw conclusions from the numbers…
error on page

That homeless man on the picture is not unimployed. He has fallen out of the system and he is not getting much help if any from the government. No welfare, no nothing.

Unemployment rate hits 2-year high….

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