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Japan jobless rate steady in December at 2.2%

15 Comments

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Here we go again!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

AMAZINGLY, government (fudged) figures again. My statistic teacher told me you can screw the statistics just have to choose the data. Think they might just be trying to get good news, any good news. Because there is no good news.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

How is that possible with all these women being housewives ? (most of the married japanese women I know or hear about are almost all housewives, some of them have just a part-time job, like students)

Is housewife being considered as a job by the government? Even if you don't get paid ? Or they just don't count them ? And all people working as a part-time job are also considered "employed" ?

There's something I can get my head around here...

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@akerusan - maybe below will help?

"In Japan, the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force."

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/unemployment-rate

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@reese

I see, thanks for sharing. Very interesting.

That's far less impressive then (imo). I mean knowing the extremely low birthrate of Japan, the fact that there are way more old people (leaving their job, well some of them) than young people (looking for a job), that is really not something to be proud of, unfortunately :/

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Low job rate my big toe.

I am sure the above fifties looking for jobs will attest to the low employment rate

as they have all picked up good paying jobs (Sarcasm)

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"In Japan, the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force."

Also, notably NOT included are those who are woefully underemployed or are only working a few hours per week! They are considered "employed" and even if they are actively looking for work, they are not included in the numbers.

The numbers are calculated by those who are receiving unemployment benefits and are registered at Hello Work looking for work.

If the government actually put out the "real" numbers the hospitals here would be overflowing with those who had sudden heart attacks!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

@BigYen

And yet you're the first one to bring the comparison with other countries...

No one said it was more fudged in Japan than elsewhere

1 ( +2 / -1 )

@BigYen

This is my opinion, I don't speak for the other commentators, but I live and work in Japan (it has been 10 years now), so I really don't care if it's better or worst elsewhere, I care about here, where I work, where I may lost my job (shouldn't happen though, fingers crossed).

Therefore my comment was only pointing out that even if it's a good number, understanding why it is so low may help understand why it is not necessarily a good news.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

In the end, what does it matter? Everyone knows about the [ working poor ] situation in Japan, and its low ranking in life satisfaction survey. Foreigners like myself are fortunate to be able to have certain privileges/priority to certain jobs, but one cannot fail to see how hard it is for the average Japanese citizen.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"AMAZINGLY, government (fudged) figures again."

Right! Until the stats are bad and then you love them, ie suicide rate. When the stats are good, the haters say the numbers are fudged, when the numbers are bad, they love them.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

The doom and gloomers on the Japanese economy are happy to point to negative stats, but when positive stats emerge, they say they are faked....when in fact all the official stats come from the same basic source.

People, especially today, fiercely believe in narratives rather than facts.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@Reese - actively looking for work, means that you are registered with and attending regularly your local "Hello Work Office". However you only have a limited period of time that you can remain registered with "Hello Work", and after that... you fall off their Radar, and are no longer included in any Government Statistics - this is the one of the "fudging" @Cricky refers to. I know, as I have in the past, been long term unemployed here in Japan. The same can be said of many older Citizens who too are available for work.

@JeffLee - maybe time to take a look around you, and see the real life situation.

A better Statistic would be to show a breakdown of the total population - categorised by pre-work-age, post-work-age, and for those in-between - showing working and not-working. That would give a true idea of the unemployment rate which no one could argue with, and would be actually simpler to understand.

You could then even then go so far as to break this down further by showing permanent vs casual work to show trends in job lifestyles. But hey, this perhaps is to far forward thinking for Government Statisticians.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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