TOKYO: Women accounted for a record 36.8 percent of newly hired public servants in Japan who joined the workforce last month, up by 1.4 percentage points from a year before, the government said Friday.

The proportion was the highest since the government started collecting such data in fiscal 2005. The government achieved its target to keep the proportion at 30 percent or more for the sixth straight year.

The overall number of new hires stood at 8,461, out of which 3,117 were women.

New hires in the comprehensive service category, or prospective top bureaucrats at government ministries and agencies, totaled 731. Of them, 259, or a record 35.4 pct, were women.

The proportion of women stood at 39.1 percent in the general service category and at 33.8 percent for specialists.

The Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs believes that the high proportion of women comes after ministries put efforts into hiring approaches targeting female students, officials said.

JIJI Press