In addition, it is affected by the factors that the decline in unit labor costs is shrinking under rising wages, and the gap between supply and demand is narrowing in the Japanese economy as a whole, as indicated by the perceptions of a labor shortage in the Tankan.
The year-on-year changes are expected to remain positive thereafter as Japan's economic growth is  2  BIS Review 87/2005  projected to exceed the potential growth rate. Surveys on price developments also indicated that expectations of prices were being revised upward.