The percentage of working-age women with jobs in Japan reached a record high of 70 percent in August, government data showed Friday, underscoring an increase in female workers amid changing attitudes and a deepening labor shortage.
The figure for women in work between ages 15 and 64 is at the highest level since comparable data became available in 1968 and compares with 83.9 percent for working-age men, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The country's unemployment rate stood at 2.4 percent in the reporting month, falling from 2.5 percent in July — the first improvement in three months — to remain near the lowest level in more than a quarter of a century.