The rate at which female workers lost jobs exceeded that of those who became employed during the first half of 2001, marking the first negative gap in the 10 years that such figures have been recorded, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

In its latest report on labor turnover, the ministry said Japan's gross labor turnover of female and male workers -- the total number of workers who left or obtained jobs -- during the January-June period this year came to 7.58 million, up 400,000 from a year earlier.

The ratio of male workers hired to total male workers with regular jobs in the period came to 7.6 percent, 0.1 percentage point higher than the ratio of 7.5 percent for those who left their jobs.

However, the ratios for female workers were 11.6 percent against 11.7 percent, showing a negative gap of 0.1 percentage point. "That's largely because there were more female workers who left jobs during the period," a ministry official said.

It was the first such negative gap since 1991, when the ministry first began taking comparative data, it said.

The labor turnover ratio -- the percentage of gross labor turnover to regular employees -- came to 18.3 percent against 17.3 percent a year earlier, reflecting the tendency of jobs to be less stable and more fluid than in the past, the ministry said.

The ministry surveyed about 14,000 business entities that had each hired at least 5,000 people, as well as about 125,000 workers who joined or left the payrolls of the entities in the reporting period.