Japan's jobless rate down to 4.1%: data
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TOKYO, Dec 28 AFP
December 28 2012, 10:56AM
Japan's jobless rate stood at 4.1 per cent in November, down from 4.2 per cent the previous month, the internal affairs ministry says.
Economists had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged in November, according to a survey by the Nikkei business daily.
A separate report from the ministry showed November consumer prices in Japan slipped 0.1 per cent from a year earlier.
The reading for the core index, which excludes volatile prices of fresh food, was in line with economists' average forecasts.
Japan has been in deflation for years, putting the Bank of Japan under increasing pressure to reverse the trend.
The country's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has threatened to revise a law guaranteeing the independence of the central bank if it does to agree to set a two-per cent inflation target.
