Job hoppers decline in Japan amid pandemic-hit economy

Dec 21, 2020 | News On Japan

Dec 21, 2020 (Nikkei) - The number of people seeking a career change is decreasing in Japan as the pandemic hits the economy.

The coronavirus has led to job losses in the food service industry, and although growing sectors such as high tech and finance have the capacity to absorb more workers, the different knowledge and skills required have prevented people from changing careers.

The government needs to enhance its job training and employment services to facilitate career-changing in the country.

Once dubbed the lifetime employment model, the Japanese way of working at companies has been changing -- the number of people changing jobs has been on the rise in recent years. According to the Labor Force Survey, the number of people changing jobs in 2019 was 3.51 million, an increase of 20% over the previous five years.

On the other hand, the January-September period of 2020 saw a 6.8% decline from the same period in 2019, and it is likely that the full year will also fall below the previous year for the first time in a decade.

Yet this does not mean that the entire job market is frozen. According to Persol Career, the ratio of job offers to job seekers was 4.89 in the information and communications sector and 1.75 in the financial sector in October, indicating a strong appetite for hiring. In terms of the monthly average number of employees, the tech sector and the financial sector increased by 2-5% in the April-October period from the previous year.

However, the ratio of job openings in food services and retail, which were directly hit by the pandemic, was 0.49, which means the number of openings was half the number of people looking for such jobs.

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