The number of non-regular employees in Japan, which includes temporary workers, dispatch workers, contractors, part-time workers and others, stood at 20.62 million in July 2021, up 0.9% over the year according to data from Statistics Japan.

The number of ‘dispatched workers from temporary labour agencies’ increased over the year by 9.6% to 1.37 million while the number of temporary workers overall increased by 0.2% to 4.41 million.

Statistics Japan also published labour market data that showed the unemployment rate stood at 2.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was 0.1% lower when compared to the previous month.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate stood at 2.8%, down 0.1% over the previous month.

Meanwhile, the job availability ratio improved to 1.15 in July 2021.