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TOKYO, JAPAN - More than 32,000 people killed themselves in Japan last year, police reported Thursday, as experts warned that suicides may go up amid the country's worst recession since World War II.
Last year's total of 32,249 suicides was 2.6 percent lower than in 2007 amid increased counselling services and other government efforts to deter people from taking their own lives.
But suicides rose in the first two months of this year as the global economic slump has hit the Asian powerhouse, squeezing household budgets and leading companies to cut tens of thousands of jobs.
"We don't consider the suicide situation to be easing when looking at the data," said Yasuyuki Shimizu of Tokyo based non-profit group Life Link, after the rate topped 30,000 for an 11th straight year.
"We think the number still remains at a high level despite the measures that have been taken."
Japan's unemployment rate hit a three-year high of 4.4 percent in February, the government said on Tuesday, with 2.99 million people without jobs, up 330,000 from a year ago.
"The government has taken employment support and other measures, but they have not yet proved effective to help people get out of depression," Shimizu told AFP.
The police agency said in a statement that it released its survey about two months early this year "because of the increasing public concern about suicides amid the recent downturn" of the economy.
Japan has one of the world's highest suicide rates, behind only a group of former Soviet bloc countries, says the World Health Organisation. --AFP
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