The average of monthly consumption expenditures per household in Japan climbed 1.6 percent on year in June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Tuesday, coming in at 269,810 yen.
That was well shy of forecasts for an increase of 2.9 percent following the 4.0 percent surge in May.
The average of monthly income per household stood at 712,592 yen, down 3.8 percent on year.
The average of consumption expenditures per household was 292,937 yen, up 2.5 percent on year.
Among the individual components, spending on communications jumped 19.9 percent on year, followed by housing at 15.5 percent, education at 1.8 percent, medical care at 1.6 percent and furniture and food, each up 0.3 percent.
Spending dropped an annual 1.6 percent on recreation, followed by a 2.6 percent drop in spending on fuel and a 1.4 percent fall in spending on clothing.
Also on Tuesday:
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that the unemployment rate in Japan came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.3 percent in June. That beat forecasts for 4.4 percent, which would have been unchanged from the previous month's reading.
The number of employed persons in June was 63.04 million, while the number of unemployed was 2.88 million. The job-to-applicant ratio was 0.82, in line with expectations and up from 0.81 in May. The participation rate was 59.4 percent, down from 59.5 percent a month earlier.
• The Nomura/JMMA Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index came in with a score of 47.9 for July, down from 49.9 in the previous month.
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