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Japan Suicides Top Record 33,000 in 1999
A record 33,048 people killed themselves in Japan in 1999, with debt or job loss blamed for around one in five of suicides, police said in a report carried by Japanese media on Friday.
Suicides rose 0.6 percent from 1998 with 23,512 men and 9,536 women ending their own lives, the National Police Agency said.
Financial difficulties led to 6,758 people taking their lives, a jump of 11.6 percent.
Particularly notable was a rise in the number of suicides by people in their fifties, up 4.9 percent to 8,288. Men in that age group have been hit hard as the nation struggles to emerge from its worst postwar economic downturn. The prolonged recession ended the "job for life" mentality at many Japanese firms which trimmed payrolls and restructured.
The United States has roughly the same number of suicides a year but its population is twice the size of Japan"s.
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