The number of non-regular employees in Japan, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, stood at 20.52 million, down 5.0% over the year  according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ fell by 8.4% to 1.31 million while the number of temporary workers decreased by 6.9% to 4.44 million.

Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 2.9%, unchanged from the previous month.

The number of unemployed persons in January 2021 was 2.03 million, this was unchanged from the same period in the prior year.

The number of employed persons in January 2021 was 66.97 million, steady from the previous year.

Japan’s jobs-to-applicants ratio was 1.09, down from 1.10 in the previous month.