This observation is consistent with the following: (1) the Tankan’s employment conditions DI, which had already shifted to one of shortage; (2) the unemployment rate of 3.6 percent in February 2014, which approached the structural unemployment rate of around 3.5 percent; and (3) the positive growth trends in wages (Charts 7 through 9).
We have avoided, thanks to the measures we took, the materialization of the depression. At this Davos meeting, we have a unique occasion to compare notes because you have here the private sector, both financial and non-financial, as well as the public authorities, the executive branches, members of parliaments, central banks, coming from both, the industrialized and the emerging world.