Unemployment always exists but Japan showed that this aspect is perfectly controlled by Shinzo Abe’s government. The unemployment index has fallen to its lowest level for 24 years.
Japan’s robust economic growth leads to a deepening shortage of labour, one of the most logical consequences of it is the lowest level of an unemployment. Despite the criticism of Abe’s Cabinet, the current government is able to be proud of the economy’s growth. The unemployment rate dropped by 0.1 percentage points in November to 2.7 percent, the lowest figure since December 1994 when Japan was descending into what became known as its “lost decade”.
The continued drop in the unemployment rate, five years after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began an economic stimulus, highlights the durability of the economic expansion underway in Japan.
“The current economic recovery is . . . characterised by its long duration,” said Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan, in a year-end speech. According to him, the duration of the current recovery phase, which started in December 2012, likely reached 60 consecutive months in November 2017.
Unemployment reached the lowest level under Abe’s government
Japan is a land of opportunities, prompted by monetary stimulus from Mr Kuroda and fiscal stimulus from prime minister Shinzo Abe, demand has grown steadily. On the other hand, the working-age population is in decline, the result is widening shortages of workers. The consumer price index was up by 0.6 percent compared with a year ago in November. Excluding volatile fresh food and energy prices, the increase was just 0.3 percent, compared with the BoJ target of 2 percent.
According to Mr Kuroda’s statement on Tuesday,
“Most members shared the recognition that it was appropriate for the bank to persistently pursue powerful monetary easing under the current guidelines for market operations,”
said the governor of the Bank of Japan.
