Japan’s unemployment rate declined to 3.9 per cent in June, the government said on Tuesday.
It is the first time the country’s unemployment figures have fallen below 4 per cent since October 2008.
The jobless rate for men edged down to 4.1 per cent from 4.2 per cent in May, while unemployment for women dropped to 3.5 per cent from 3.9 per cent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The number of unemployed people dropped by 280,000 from a year earlier to 2.6 million, falling year-on-year for the 37th consecutive month, the ministry said.
Medical and social services saw an increase of 260,000 jobs to employ a total of 7.33 million and the information and telecommunications industry added 90,000 jobs to 1.97 million, while transport and postal services shed 160,000 positions to 3.3 million, the ministry said.
Analysts said that one of Japan’s most serious issues in the past decade has not been the unemployment figures but unstable forms of employment, especially among women and young people.
In 2012, the proportion of temporary and part-time workers in the labour force hit a record high of 35.2 per cent for the third straight year of rise, a government report said.
The availability of jobs, measured as a ratio of job offers per job seekers, climbed 0.02 points from the previous month to 0.92 in June for the fourth consecutive month of rise, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said.