The number of non-regular employees in Japan, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, stood at 20.59 million in September 2021, down 1.0% over the year according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ decreased over the year by 2.8% to 1.39 million while the number of temporary workers overall decreased by 1.8% to 4.37 million.

Statistics Japan also published labour market data that showed the unemployment rate stood at 2.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was flat when compared to the previous month.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate stood at 2.8%, down 0.2% compared to the previous year. The labour force participation rate stood at 62.3%, up 0.1% compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, when it comes to job availability the jobs-to-applicants ratio was 1.16, up from 1.14 in the previous month.