Japan's real wages in 2025 dropped 1.3 percent from a year earlier, down for the fourth consecutive year as soaring prices erased pay hikes, government data showed Monday.
Nominal wages, or the average monthly cash earnings per worker including base and overtime pay, rose 2.3 percent last year to 355,919 yen (about 2,260 U.S. dollars), marking the fifth consecutive year of increase without considering inflation, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Meanwhile, consumer prices climbed 3.7 percent in the reporting year, accelerating from a 3.2 percent gain in the previous year, weighing on inflation-adjusted wages, a barometer of consumer purchasing power.
Real wages affect private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan's gross domestic product.
In December alone, real wages at workplaces with five or more employees fell 0.1 percent from the previous year, down for the 12th straight month, while nominal wages rose 2.4 percent to 631,986 yen, up for the 48th straight month, the ministry said.
Japan's real wages in 2025 fall for 4th straight year amid surging prices
China's domestically developed T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fiber holds broad application prospects in strategic emerging industries, according to its developer.
The country on Wednesday unveiled SYT80, a domestically developed T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fiber, marking a major breakthrough in the China's high-performance carbon fiber technology.
This new material has achieved a hundred-tonne-level annual production capacity, making China the first nation to mass-produce this caliber of fiber, according to its developer, China National Building Material Group Co., Ltd. (CNBM).
Featuring lightweight and high-strength properties, the fiber's diameter is less than one-tenth that of a human hair, and yet its tensile strength is 10 times that of ordinary steel and its density is only one-quarter of steel's.
"Compared with the previous-generation T1100, T1200 has seen its tensile strength increase by more than 14 percent. With its ultimate lightweight and high-strength characteristics, T1200 can achieve weight reduction of over 10 percent for equipment in related fields. It holds broad application prospects in strategic emerging industries such as commercial aerospace, low-altitude economy, and humanoid robots," said Chen Qiufei, head of T1200 ultra-high-strength carbon fiber research and development at Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Company, a subsidiary of China National Building Material Group.
The new material also possesses many other outstanding properties.
As the fiber undergoes carbonization at nearly 2,000 degrees Celsius during production, its chemical properties remain stable and its corrosion resistance is excellent.
This fiber material also features strong fire and flame retardant properties, offering good safety performance.
The development of this fiber material demonstrates China's fully independent and controllable capabilities across the entire industrial chain of high-performance carbon fiber, spanning technologies and equipment as well as the transition from laboratory research to mass production, said Zhou Yuxian, chairman of CNBM.
China's high-strength carbon fiber shows strong potential in strategic emerging industries
