Spending by wage-earning households turned downward in April for the first time in five months, plummeting a real 4.4 percent from a year earlier to an average of 347,882 yen, the government said Tuesday in a preliminary report.

The decline is the sharpest since December 1999, when household spending marked a 4.7 percent year-on-year fall, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications said.

Wage-earning households account for roughly 60 percent of Japan's total household spending.