Japan Weekly: Demographic crisis worsening as births keep falling

Japan is now recording more than twice as many deaths as births, with that ratio only surpassed in war-ravaged Ukraine and celibate Holy See. While the number of employed people nonetheless hit a record high last year, we expect employment to start falling towards the end of this decade. Meanwhile, the January activity data point to a fall in GDP in Q1. But with inflation set to overshoot the Bank of Japan’s forecasts, we still expect the Bank to hike rates in May.