Japan Economy Sentiment:

 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201208/p2g/00m/0bu/122000c

Japan economy watcher sentiment worsens for 1st time since April

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Business confidence among workers with jobs sensitive to economic trends worsened for the first time in seven months, affected by a resurgence in the number of coronavirus infections, government data showed Tuesday.

The diffusion index of sentiment among "economy watchers" such as taxi drivers and restaurant staff came to 45.6, down 8.9 points from October, according to a survey by the Cabinet Office.

The office downgraded its assessment also for the first time since April, saying that "the economy has shown some weakness in its recovery" as the impact of the pandemic remains severe.

Ideas:

Economy watchers of course are most likely all in service type business that are heavily dependent on consumers. As such their business, or those working in service businesses are always sensitive to what is going on in the economy, as a downturn in consumer sentiment or even business sentiment can have a direct affect on their jobs or companies.

As has been written in other posts, an economy never grows or even decrease at the same rate in all areas. An economy is very complex meaning there are always some positives and always some negatives in a market economy.

Of course now with the pandemic there are going to be more negatives than positives.

In this case regarding a recovery, or an implied recovery all industries, sectors, or business don't recover at the same rate. Some are going to recover faster than others and unfortunately some might take a long time to get back to pre-pandemic levels.

Article:

In the previous month, it said the economy is "steadily rebounding" although difficulties remain due to the global health crisis.

The diffusion index of November compared with a rise of 5.2 points in October, when it first topped the boom-or-bust line of 50 in nearly three years as Japan was gradually recovering from the fallout of the pandemic.

A reading below 50 indicates that more respondents reported worsening conditions than improving ones. 

A government official, who briefed reporters on the latest results, said concerns grew due to the new wave of infections ahead of the year-end and New Year season.

Ideas:

The diffusion index for October inferred that there were more indicators trending upward compared to downward. 

So even in early November the indicators were showing a general trend of a "recovering economy. 

But of course economic conditions and the virus situation began to change quickly.

One of the biggest problems for "economy watchers" and all service type businesses is the news cycle and the 24/7 news about the virus situation. Citizens/consumers are deluged with news every hour of the day and as such become more and more pessimistic, worrisome, and pessimistic and as such begin to re-think the need to go out and frequent places that they used to before the pandemic situation.

Article:

An upscale-restaurant worker was quoted as saying there were fewer customers due to the resurgence and an increasing number of reservations for year-end parties have also been canceled.

Looking forward, the economy watchers remain worried about the spread of the virus, with the diffusion index gauging business sentiment in the coming months falling to 36.5, down 12.6 points from the previous month.

A worker in the service industry said the virus spike has heightened worries the economy may be hit again as authorities could ask more people to refrain from nonessential outings.

The office polled 2,050 workers from Nov. 25 to 30, of whom 1,834, or 89.5 percent, responded.

Ideas:

No doubt again as the virus situation picks up and there is more and more news about it, good that consumers are being kept up to date but not so good as consumers begin to become more and more worrisome about what is going on.

Which of course translates into less activity related to service type companies.

And as this post is being written, the Japanese government has not implemented emergency measures for the Tokyo area.

While the measures are no doubt needed but service businesses most likely are going feel the affect of they measures with having to either close earlier and or less customers because of the new emergency measures and or fear of the pandemic.

Just yesterday Jan. 9 2021 watching the Shibuya crossing on You Tube there again like last spring less people out and about compared to the summer, fall, or even a few weeks ago.