A total of 223,243 nonregular employees, mainly temporary workers, lost or are expected to lose their jobs between last October and this September, up 3.2 percent from a similar survey in May, the labor ministry said Tuesday.
The ministry said following the May survey that 207,381 nonregular employees lost or were expected to lose jobs between October and June, with the number marking an 8 percent rise from the previous survey in March.
The pace of rise in nonregular employees' job losses in the June poll slowed from May due partly to a pickup in automobile production, though the latest poll covered a longer period than May's, the ministry said.
The latest survey revealed that the number of regular employees who lost or are expected to lose their jobs during the 12-month period to September was 35,261, marking a 32.6 percent rise from May.
Ministry officials suggested that the data shows that companies that first fired nonregular employees in recent months are now moving to get rid of some regular workers.
Temp workers from staffing agencies accounted for 61.6 percent of nonregular workers who have lost or are expected to lose their jobs.
Of these temp staff, only 30,325 people found new jobs. The number marks a rise of 5.3 percentage points over the May poll.
By prefecture, 37,059 nonregular workers, the largest number, lost or are expected to lose their jobs in Aichi Prefecture, the home of the auto industry.
Aichi is followed by 10,046 job losses in Nagano Prefecture and 9,263 in Shizuoka Prefecture. The rankings of the three prefectures remained identical to those in the May poll.
The findings in the latest survey are based on data the ministry gathered by June 18. Data on regular workers were collected only from business offices where at least 100 people lost or were expected to lose jobs.