Japan’s non-regular employees, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, totalled 20.73 million in February 2022, up 0.5% when compared to the same period a year ago, according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ reported an increase of 3.0% over the year and stood at a total of 1.36 million while the number of temporary workers overall increased by 0.9% to 4.50 million.

Statistics Japan also published labour market data that showed the unemployment rate stood at 2.6% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. This was down 0.2% when compared to the previous year.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate stood at 2.7%, down 0.1% over the month and up 0.3% over the year.

Japan’s labour force participation rate stood at 61.8%, down 0.1% compared to the previous year.

The number of employed persons in February totalled 66.58 million, down 0.5% compared to the previous year.

By sector, the information and communications sector reported an increase of 3.3% over the year. On the other hand, the finance and insurance sector reported a decrease of 6.7%.

The job availability ratio increased up to 1.21 in February from 1.20 in January.