JAPAN / Unemployment falls, improvement in large companies' expectations

Today, some macroeconomic data from Japan for February and the first quarter of 2025 were released. The job openings-to-applications ratio stood at 1.24, slightly down from January's 1.26, indicating a slight decrease in the scarcity of available jobs. This data disappointed expectations, which had predicted stability. The unemployment rate, on the other hand, decreased to 2.4% from the previous month's 2.5%, better than expected. Regarding the Tankan index, which measures the sentiment of Japanese businesses, the data presents a complex but improving situation. The Tankan index for large manufacturing companies dropped to 12 in the first quarter from 13, but it was better than the forecasted 9. Large non-manufacturing companies saw their index rise to 35 from 33 in the first quarter. Small manufacturing companies experienced a slight improvement, with their index rising from 1 to 2. Small non-manufacturing companies maintained the same index value of 16.