According to the Bank of Japan's Tankan (Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises), the outlook for prices in five years' time has reached 2% for the first time.
The Tankan also shows that firms' labor shortages are increasing, and the focus will likely be on the extent to which firms will raise wages, given that prices are expected to rise.
In its quarterly Tankan survey, the Bank of Japan asks companies about their outlook for prices. Three years later, it was up 2.1%, surpassing the previous survey three months ago.
Furthermore, the outlook for five years from now is 2.0%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous survey, reaching the 2% level for the first time.
The Bank of Japan has stated that the current price rise is not accompanied by a rise in wages and is temporary, and will continue to ease monetary policy. .
On the other hand, in this year's Tankan, the index obtained by subtracting the percentage of firms that answered "shortage" from the number of firms that answered "excessive" was -19 for the manufacturing sector and -34 for the non-manufacturing sector, both from the previous survey. The negative margin widened by 4 points, indicating that companies are feeling a labor shortage.
As for the outlook, both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries are expected to contract further. It seems that the focus will be on how far wages can be raised.