The approval rating for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet rose to 39.8% following a reshuffle of ministers and the ruling party's leadership, up 6.2 percentage points from late August, a Kyodo News survey showed Thursday, signaling the shakeup's limited impact on lifting its sagging popularity.
According to the two-day nationwide telephone survey conducted from Wednesday, 37.6% of respondents said they viewed Kishida's picks for Cabinet ministers and ruling party leadership positively, against 43.9% who felt otherwise.
Kishida on Wednesday appointed a record-tying five women as ministers, including the top diplomat, and picked 11 new faces for his Cabinet, after facing sluggish support ratings in recent months amid public frustration over the trouble-plagued My Number national identification card system and inflation.