About a year has passed since the subprime-mortgage-loan debacle and the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a global financial crisis and worldwide recession. In Japan, some indicators suggest the economy has bottomed out and may be headed toward recovery. However, the employment situation hasn't shown any improvement and is worsening instead.

In July, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hit 5.7 percent, topping the previous record of 5.5 percent, and is widely forecast to rise further. This is a trend also being commonly observed in the United States and European economies. The jobless rate in the U.S. hit 9.7 percent in August and has climbed to double digits in some of the euro-zone countries.

Employment statistics are important because they determine the purchasing power of individuals — a key factor in tracking trends in consumer spending and housing investment, which account for about 70 percent of Japan's gross domestic product. Aggregate purchasing power in households, for example, is calculated by taking the number of people with jobs and multiplying that by their wages.