Japan Press Weekly

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2013 February 20 - 26 [LABOR]

Rate of non-regular workers hits record-high

The percentage of non-regular employees in Japan has reached a record-high of 35.2%, the internal affair ministry announced on February 19.

The ministry on the day released the 2012 labor force survey result.

The survey result shows the fall in the total number of employees in Japan and the number of regular employees. The former decreased by 90,000 to 51.54 million from the previous survey and the latter by 120,000 to 33.4 million.

By contrast, the number of those who work as non-regular workers increased by 20,000 to 18.13 million, accounting for 35.2% of the total number of employees. Both the number and the rate marked the highest ever since the ministry began the survey in 1984.

Regarding the rate of non-regular workers by gender, the rate of female workers rose by 0.1 percentage point to 54.5%, while the rate of male workers dropped by 0.2 percentage point to 19.7%.

The survey also indicates that among 17.82 million employed persons whose annual income is less than 2 million yen, 13.69 million or 76.8% are non-regular employees and half of them are women.

Looking at the annual income of contingent workers working more than 35 hours a week, 57% of female workers and 34.5% of male workers earn less than two million yen a year, and 24.5% of female workers and 32.4% of male workers earn between two million yen and three million yen annually.