Japan's unemployment rate reaches record 5.6%

Japan's unemployment rate edged up to 5.6% in December, the fourth successive month of record high joblessness.

Japan's unemployment rate edged up to 5.6% in December, the fourth successive month of record high unemployment.

The country has been fighting a slowdown in the jobs market for more than a decade, and struggling to become a more industrialised, service-orientated economy.

A total of 3.37 million people were unemployed in December, 390,000 more than in the same month a year earlier, and analysts say things are likely to worsen as companies collapse or resort to drastic job cuts.

Job-cutting plans announced by a range of electronics, banking and telecommunications companies are expected to hit tens of thousands of people.

Mamoru Yamazaki, chief economist at Barclays Capital Japan in Tokyo, says: "The stage is set now for unemployment to really start rising. It's just beginning."

The manufacturing sector shed 370,000 jobs in 2001 - marking the ninth successive year of decline.

Some 210,000 jobs were lost in construction; while the service sector gained 500,000 jobs.

Government Labour statistics show that Japan's unemployment rate marked a record high in 2001 of 5% on average for the year.

The jobless rate has been hitting record highs almost every month since July, when it reached 5% - the highest since the government began keeping track in 1953.

In November, the unemployment rate hit 5.5%, as jobs were eroded in one-time mainstay sectors such as manufacturing and construction.