Unemployment is a direct cause of poverty, and people who are currently unemployed or searching for a job are generally more likley to be poor. According to Komamura, the risk of becoming part of the low-income household is higher for unemployed people in their late thirties to late fifties. The unemployment rate itself peaked in 2002 at 5.4% and then sloely decreased to 3.9% in July 2008. However, employment has also largely shifted to "irregular" forms of employment since the 1990s onwards, replacing the permanent workforce with a more instable and lower-waged one.