Jobless Japanese woman sets fire to work counsellor

TOKYO (Reuters) - An unemployed Japanese woman was arrested on Wednesday for setting a job agency worker on fire for failing to find her work, causing serious injuries.

"She couldn't get me a job so I set her on fire with a lighter," a police official in Noda, near Tokyo, quoted the 45-year-old woman as saying.

The woman set fire to the worker after splashing her with gasoline from a plastic bottle, the official said. She was rushed to hospital by helicopter.

The job agency worker, who was on her way to work, sustained burns to the upper half of her body, the Yomiuri newspaper said. She was seriously injured but conscious.

Japan's jobless rate rose to a new 5-1/2-year high of 5.2 percent in May and job availability sank to a record low as companies worried over the outlook for the economy, just coming off its worst recession since World War Two.