Japan's jobs-to-applicants ratio falls to record low in 2009

Japan's average ratio of job offers to job seekers dropped to a record low in 2009, down 0.41 point from the previous year to 0.47, Japanese government has said.

The ratio, the lowest since the survey started in 1963, means that there were 47 job offers for every 100 job seekers.

In December, the ratio stood at 0.46, up from 0.45 in November, marking a fractional increase for the fourth straight month.

Japan's unemployment rate averaged 5.1 per cent in 2009, the highest since 2003, when it marked 5.3 per cent, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said yesterday.

The annual rate jumped a record 1.1 points from 2008, it said, adding that the average number of jobless people in 2009 also increased to an all-time high since 1954 when comparable data became available, up 710,000 to 3.36 million.

Hit by the 2008 global economic crisis, as almost everywhere else, Japan's unemployment rates turned significantly higher, rising constantly from 4.1 per cent in January to a record high of 5.7 per cent in July and staying above the 5 per cent level since then, though slightly improving recently.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate in December unexpectedly fell to 5.1 per cent from 5.2 per cent in the previous month, a preliminary report by the internal affairs ministry showed.