Vice trade minister Osamu Watanabe brushed aside concerns Monday over the nation’s record-high 4.9 percent unemployment rate logged last week, reassuring that the recession touched bottom in the first quarter of the year.
While recognizing the severe state of current employment, Watanabe stressed that an employment rate is a “slow-acting index” and follows the real state of economy later on.
Unable to view this article?
This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software.
Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.
If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this support page.
We humbly apologize for the inconvenience.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.