Japan's jobless rate fell in May to a seasonally adjusted 4.6 percent from the record-high 4.8 percent seen in March and April, but the number of unemployed men in Japan actually hit a record high while the number of jobless women also increased on a year-on-year basis.
The seemingly incongruous figures were included in a report released Tuesday by the Management and Coordination Agency. The agency said the drop in the unemployment rate is partly attributable to more women giving up their employment searches amid discouraging prospects. The government does not consider an unemployed person who gives up looking for work to be unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Labor Ministry said in a separate report that the ratio of job offers to job-seekers stood at a record-low 0.46 in May, down from 0.48 in April and 0.49 in March. The latest ratio means there were only 46 job offers for every 100 job-seekers, the lowest since January 1963, when the ministry started compiling data under the current method. The previous low mark was 0.47, registered from October to December.
Job offers declined across the board, diving 20 percent in manufacturing, 15.5 percent in construction, and 10.5 percent in transportation and telecommunications from a year earlier, according to the ministry said.
There were 3.34 million unemployed people in May, a rise of 410,000 compared with the previous year. By sex, there were 2.07 million men, up 310,000, and 1.27 million women, up 100,000. The agency began compiling employment data in 1953, and the latest statistic on jobless men is the highest on record, it said.
In terms of the jobless rate, however, that for men dropped to 4.9 percent from the record-high 5 percent in April, and to 4.2 percent for women from April's 4.5 percent. The the slight decline in the male unemployment rate is a statistical phenomenon of seasonal adjustment, the agency said.