Japan’s non-regular employees, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, totalled 20.77 million in May 2022, up 0.2% 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 11.5% over the year and stood at a total of 1.55 million while the number of temporary workers overall increased by 5.8% to 4.40 million.

Statistics Japan also published labour market data that showed the unemployment rate stood at 2.8% 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 2.6%, rising by 0.1% over the month.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate stood at 2.8%, down 0.3% over the year.

The job availability ratio stood at 1.24, up 0.01 point from the previous month, meaning there were 124 job openings for every 100 jobseekers.

Meanwhile, the number of employed persons stood at 67.30 million, up 0.3% over the year.

By sector, employment in the real estate and goods rental and leasing sector reported an increase of 10.9% over the year. The construction sector reported a decrease of 5.1%.

Japan’s labour force participation rate stood at 62.7%, up 0.5% compared to the previous year.