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Japan's unemployment rate unchanged at 3.8 per cent

Business Materials 29 January 2008 07:23 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa ) - Japan's unemployment rate for December was unchanged from the previous month at 3.8 per cent, the government said Tuesday.

The statistics showed that 2.31 million people were registered unemployed in December, down 130,000 from November. Consumer spending, which accounts for 55 per cent of Japan's economy, increased 2.2 per cent on the month.

For the whole of 2007, unemployment stood at an average of 3.9 per cent, a drop of 0.2 per cent on the previous year.

Meanwhile, monthly household spending rose a real 2.2 per cent in December to 351,667 yen (3,298 dollars), compared to a year before.

The growth was stronger than the average expectation of a 0.3-per-cent fall.

The average monthly income of wage-earning households dropped 2.7 per cent to 950,654 yen for the second straight monthly decline, while their spending increased 1.8 per cent to 379,388 yen marking the first increase in two months.

Household spending data is a key indicator of personal spending.

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