Apples and Oranges... and Body Count Statistics-

The official Japanese unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in January, a .2% improvement. On the surface that sounds encouraging. After all it's pretty close to the same as the US unemployment rate, right?

What isn't obvious from the statistics is that the counting method is significantly different between the US and Japan. If they were measured the same way the actual Japanese unemployment rate would be around 2% higher.

As if that wasn't bad enough, job age discrimination in Japan is still prevalent here. Most of the ads for position explicity state the age range for employment (along with whether the position is male or female.) If you are over 45 the picking are extremely thin. And, of course, as companies here downsize, the first employees they cast adrift are the higher seniority, long term employees - those least likely to have the career skills to cope.

According to a white paper published last year by one of the Japanese government ministries, six months after losing their jobs around half of the people are still unemployed. At the twelve month mark the figure is still over 40% unemployed. In the US the six month figure is under 10% and under 5% at twelve months. Quite a gap. One that's going to take a lot of time and work to close.....

Japan Today Japan News - News - Unemployment rate falls to 5.3% in Jan - Japan's Leading International News Network
- posted by tempusmaster @ 9:03 PM