The unemployment rate was 4 percent in September 2013 (4.3 percent for males and 3.5 percent for females), approaching the full-employment level especially with regard to female workers. The Bank’s September 2013 Tankan (Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan) indicates a shortage in employment in the nonmanufacturing sector, regardless of firm size.
And making appropriate amendments to update the 1988 Accord, as we have been doing periodically over the years, will make the current framework appropriate for most of the banking organizations in the United States. But we remain sensitive to the possibility that proposed Basel II rules could have some unintended competitive effects.