Jobless rate hits record high 5.4 percent in Japan

TOKYO -- Japan's unemployment rate climbed to a record high 5.4 percent in October, causing concern that an economic downturn will worsen before the situation improves.

The October jobless rate, announced Thursday, was the highest since the government began keeping track in the 1950s. In September, the jobless rate hit 5.3 percent. Two months earlier, it reached 5 percent, then the record.

Japan's jobless rate now stands at the same 5.4 percent as the U.S. rate. But Japan is less equipped than the United States to encourage worker mobility, help match job-hunters with openings and offer job-training because it boasted unemployment rates at 1 percent and 2 percent levels for decades.

"If new industries are to grow, we first need economic reform," said Susumu Takahashi, chief economist at The Japan Research Institute in Tokyo. "That means more pain, and unemployment will rise."

As many as 1.5 million people may lose their jobs in the next five years and the unemployment rate could rise close to 7 percent, he said.