The monthly number of people migrating into Tokyo and its vicinity in July was less than the number of those moving out of the area for the first time, as the capital became the center of a coronavirus resurgence in the country, government data showed Thursday.

The outflow exceeded the inflow by 1,459 people in the capital and the prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa, marking the first negative net migration since the government began compiling figures including foreigners in July 2013.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the number of people moving into the Tokyo metropolitan region dropped 16.1 percent from a year earlier to 29,103 in July. Those migrating from the area fell 5.7 percent to 30,562.