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INDUSTRIES
EMPLOYMENT
As
of 1996, 64.9 million Japanese were in the work force,
with 59% of them being male. Roughly a third of women with
paying jobs worked part-time.
The
service sector was the biggest employer, with 24.6% of all
workers on its payroll. It was followed by the wholesale,
retail, and restaurant industries (22.5%), and
manufacturing (22.3%).
The
picture has changed dramatically since 1960. Then,
agriculture was the largest employer, accounting for 30.0%
of all jobs; now it provides just 5%. The number of people
in services, meanwhile, doubled from the 12.0% of 35 years
earlier.
The
sluggish economy over the past few years has been
responsible for pushing the unemployment rate to a postwar
high of 3.4% in 1996. For most of the period following
World War II, it had remained between 1% and 2%.
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General Section
