Shrinking domestic market, worker shortage are biggest headaches for Japanese firms: poll

Tokyo

JAPANESE firms say shrinking domestic demand is their biggest worry over the next three years while labour shortages are a close second, a Reuters poll found, highlighting the difficulties of coping with a dwindling and rapidly ageing population.

Japan's demographic challenges have for decades hindered efforts by policymakers to engineer a sustained economic recovery as the country's greying consumers, lacking confidence in the future, tend to scrimp and save rather than spend.

Asked what was their biggest concern over the next three years, 40 per cent of businesses cited the country's shrinking market, the Reuters Corporate …