office workers are reflected in a glass railing as they cross a street during lunch hour in tokyo june 1 2015 reutersthomas peter tokyo feb 1 reuters  japans jobless rate fell to 27 in december as employment posted the biggest monthly gain in nearly 36 years government data showed on tuesday the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in december was lower than the 28 in the previous month which was also the median forecast in a reuters poll of economists the seasonally adjusted number of employed people grew by 490000 the biggest gain since january 1986 to 667 million in december employment figures were growing in sectors such as hotel and restaurant services reflecting low covid19 cases in december a government official said however we need to pay close attention to the outlook for employment as coronavirus infections are rising because of the omicron variant a gauge of job availability also rose the jobstoapplicants ratio was 116 in december labour ministry data showed up 001 point from the previous months reading and matching a reuters poll forecast of 116 reporting by kaori kaneko and kantaro komiya writing by daniel leussink editing by christopher cushing and lincoln feast