The number of non-regular employees in Japan, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, stood at 20.39 million in April 2021, up 1.0% over the year according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ increased over the year by 5.3% to 1.40 million while the number of temporary workers increased by 1.7% to 4.14 million.

At the same time, Statistics Japan published labour market data that showed the unemployment rate stood at 2.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was 0.2% higher than the same period in 2020 as well as 0.2% higher compared to the previous month.

The number of unemployed persons, not seasonally adjusted, stood at 2.09 million, up 10.6% compared to the same period last year.

The number of employed persons stood at 66.57 million, an increase of 0.4% over the year.

The jobs-to-applicant ratio stood at 1.09 in April 2021.