Abstract
This paper analyses the seasonal fluctuation of construction labor and compares the seasonal patterns of construction workers by the status of employment. The figure 1 shows the symmetric contrast of the seasonal pattern of construction labor and that of agricultural labor. It suggests the seasonal shifts of labor between the two industries. Farmers are busy with rice transplantation in spring and also with rice-mowing in autumn. From the fact that the number of construction workers decreases and the number of agricultural workers increases in these two seasons, we can conclude that the seasonal pattern of construction labor in Japan are mainly dependent on the seasonal pattern of agricultural production. In winter, some farmers in northern areas can not find any jobs because of the cold and snowy weather and they remove to the southern metropolitan areas as "dekasegi-laborers" where they can get jobs usually in construction industry. The figure 4 shows the difference of seasonal patterns of temporary workers and day-laborers in construction industry and other industries. We can guess that the unique features in the pattern of construction industry are caused by the seasonal fluctuation of the demand for construction works.
