Japan's unemployment rate fell to 2.8% in July, down for the second straight month, despite a resurgence of coronavirus infections and a fourth state of emergency declared for Tokyo over the virus, government data showed Tuesday.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell from 2.9% in June, which had also seen a 0.1 percentage point drop from the previous month, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. But the level is still higher than the 2.4% registered in February last year, when the Japanese economy had yet to see major fallout from the pandemic.
Separate data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare showed that the job availability ratio in July increased to 1.15 from 1.13 a month earlier, rising for the second month in a row, meaning that there were 115 job openings for every 100 job seekers. It had gained 0.04 point in June.