JAPAN

Labor Costs Dip: The 0.95% decline at major companies in fiscal 1994 was the first drop since World War II, a business daily reported. The 1,502 companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, including manufacturers, trading houses, banks, insurers and securities firms, spent about $347.3 billion on labor during the year ended March 31, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The newspaper based its report on financial data released by the companies. The report attributed the drop to downsizing efforts by the companies in the midst of an economic stagnation that started in the early 1990s.