Jobless rate casts shadow over Japanese recovery

[dArKeR]

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , TOKYO
Sunday, Aug 29, 2004,Page 11

Japan's unemployment rate jumped unexpectedly in July while prices and consumer spending continued to decline, raising a note of doubt on the strength of the economic recovery here.

Japan's unemployment rate rose for the first time this year, jumping to 4.9 percent for July from 4.6 percent for June. Economists had expected the rate to remain unchanged. Spending by households of salaried workers fell 2.5 percent in July from a month earlier, the third consecutive monthly decline.

"These numbers were generally on the weak side of expectations, so it does raise the question of whether economic growth was as strong as the market would portray," said Ryo Hino, an economist for J.P. Morgan in Tokyo.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2004/08/29/2003200758

Same as America. I've been listening to the Media Whores for 3.5 years say, "The recovery is next quarter" or "The recovery is here". But when they say "The recovery is here" and then the facts show otherwise they say "The recovery is next quarter". CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC... How stupid could the American people be? How corrupt could the Media be? This is a fact and any moral jouralist could go view these clips and run a story on the Media Whores just as Franken does on Limliar, O'Liar, and Haniliar.

[Art_from_Ark]

1. The unemployment figures have come as a shock

even to me, perilously close, as they are, to the psychological threshold of 5%. And there are lots of young people called "freeters" who drift from job to job without setting down any roots.

At the same time, the local economy is going gangbusters, and from my office window in Tokyo I can count at least 8 high-rise office buildings under construction.