The number of non-regular employees in Japan, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, stood at 20.93 million, down 3.9% over the year. This is according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ increased by 3.6% to 1.45 million while the number of temporary workers decreased by 7.5% to 4.66 million.

Meanwhile, Japan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 2.9% in December 2020, unchanged from the previous month.

The number of unemployed persons in December 2020 was 1.94 million, this was 33.8% higher than the same period in the prior year.

The number of employed persons in December 2020 was 66.6 million, a decrease of 1.1% from the previous year.

Japan’s job availability ratio rose to 1.06 in December 2020 which means that there were 106 job vacancies for every 100 job seekers.