TOKYO — Suicides in Japan fell last year for the first time in six years, but the number of cases caused by distress over the economic slowdown rose to a record-high.
In 2000, 31,957 people killed themselves, down 3.3 percent from a record 33,048 suicides in 1999, the National Police Agency said this week. It was the third-largest number of suicides since the agency began compiling the statistics in 1978.
Japanese suffering from poor health accounted for 15,539 cases, but suicides due to economic hardship climbed to a record, rising 1.1 percent to 6,838.
Japan has been unable to pull itself free of a decade-long slowdown. The hard times have forced companies to slash jobs, sending the nation's unemployment rate to an all-time high of 4.9 percent.
By gender, 22,727 men, mostly in their 50s and 60s, killed themselves in 2000, while 9,230 women took their own lives, the agency said.
Japan has one of the world's highest suicide rates, with slightly more cases per year than the United States but less than half the population.