JAPAN’S JOBLESS RATE AT LOWEST IN NEARLY 25 YRS

TOKYO: Japan’s jobless rate stood at 2.4 percent in January, the lowest showed Friday, a major boost for the world’s third-largest economy.

April 1993 when the rate hit 2.3 percent -- comes as Japan has notched up eight straight quarters of economic growth, the longest boom days of the late 1980s.

Japan’s government and central bank are hoping for a “virtuous - ery boosting jobs and household income and thereby domestic demand, which accounts for roughly 60 percent of Japan’s economy.

However, the former economic - tion fears, failing to achieve the 2.0-percent inflation rate target set by the central bank, which is thought crucial to boosting the economy.

Experts say boosting domestic - tion and it requires better salaries for workers and removing fears over the snowballing costs of social welfare in the rapidly ageing society.

The data offer some good news a day after he was forced into an embarrassing climbdown over a key plank of his economic policy linked to labor market reforms.