TOKYO — The number of Japanese women in the work force declined for the first time in 24 years, according to a government report Monday that blames the country's economic slump.
The number of women who have jobs or are actively seeking them slipped 120,000 to 27.6 million, the Labor Ministry's White Paper on Women said. Unemployment among Japanese women rose to an all-time high of 4.5 percent in 1999, up from 4.0 percent in 1998, the report said.
The report said the poor economy has increased the number of women who lost their jobs and decreased the number of new hires. It also said that more women are dropping out of the labor market, which even in boom times has hesitated to rehire women who have quit their jobs to marry or start a family.
It recommended measures "to achieve the creation of a society that makes full use of the abilities of women of higher education who wish to work."
The world's second-largest economy is languishing in its deepest slump in decades. It slipped back into technical recession in the January-to-March quarter, the second in a row in which gross domestic product declined.