Japan’s young workers head to Australia, eyeing higher pay, better work-life balance

“Youth are questioning Japan’s economic outlook,” said Yuya Kikkawa, an economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute. “Living conditions are far tougher than the headline inflation figure suggests.”

The Bank of Japan finally scrapped the world’s last negative interest rate last month amid signs a virtuous cycle of wage gains is feeding demand-led inflation. But even after Japanese trade unions won their biggest wage hike in more than 30 years last month, there remains a notable gap in real wages with other advanced economies.

In…