The nation's unemployment rate in December stood at a seasonally adjusted 4.4 percent, shedding 0.1 percentage point from November and marking a six-year low, according to a report released Friday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The jobless rate for calendar 2004 slid to 4.7 percent, down 0.6 percentage point from a year earlier and marking the largest year-on-year fall since 1946, when the government started compiling the statistics.

The annual average, which improved for the second straight year, fell below the 5-percent level for the first time in four years.

Despite the overall improvements, the jobless rate remains conspicuously high for young people and gaping discrepancies among geographic regions remain.

The seasonally adjusted ratio of job offers to job seekers in December rose by 0.02 points from November to 0.94, hitting a 12-year high, according to a separate report released the same day by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The figure means there were 94 openings for every 100 job seekers.

The annual average came to 0.83 in 2004, up 0.19 point from the previous year.

The average jobless rate for men stood at 4.9 percent in 2004, marking a year-on-year decline of 0.6 percentage point. The rate for women fell 0.5 percentage point to 4.4 percent.

The average number of unemployed in 2004 was 3.13 million, decreasing by 370,000 from a year earlier-also the largest margin since 1946. Men accounted for 1.92 million, down by 230,000, while the figure for women dropped by 140,000 to 1.21 million.

The number of people who were forced out of work for reasons not attributed to themselves, such as downsizing, averaged 1.18 million in 2004, down by 280,000 from a year earlier-an indication that corporate restructuring efforts are easing.

The improvements, however, are not a guarantee that the nation's labor force has been revitalized.

The ratio of employed and unemployed seeking jobs against the total population of people 15 years old and older has been on decline since peaking in 1992. The ratio was 60.4 percent in 2004, down from 64 percent in 1992.

The total number of employed and unemployed seeking work averaged 66.42 million in 2004, declining by 1.51 million from a peak in 1998.

The drop was noticeable among young men aged between 15 and 24, which marked a year-on-year decrease of 1.2 points, compared with the overall decline of 0.4 point and the 0.7-point drop among men aged 65 or older.

A labor ministry official said the deterioration is partly attributed to an increasing number of young people who are unwilling to work.

The unemployment rate for men aged 15 to 24 was 10.9 percent in 2004. The figure fell by 0.7 percentage point from a year earlier, but the age bracket was the only one to exceed the 10-percent mark.

Gaps in the employment scenarios among regions continued to widen.

In the Tokai and Hokuriku regions, the average jobless rate in 2004 dropped below the 4-percent mark to 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively.

However, the figures for the Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kinki and Kyushu regions, whose economies are suffering, remained above 5 percent.(IHT/Asahi: January 29,2005)