Something odd is going on with Japan’s labour market. Unemployment is at 3.7 per cent. Recently, it has been as low as 3.5 per cent, considered by some economists to be pretty much full employment. (The uptick is only because the previously discouraged are flooding back to work.)

The trend is being helped by demographics, which sees more baby-boomers retiring than millennials starting out. For every 100 people looking, there are 110 jobs on offer, the best ratio in 20 years. In some industries, including truck driving and healthcare, employers cannot find workers for love nor money. Building site foremen are in desperately short supply as construction companies work overtime to rebuild the tsunami-devastated coast and prepare for Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games. One restaurant chain specialising in beef-and-rice dishes was forced to close a 10th of its roughly 2,000 restaurants this summer because it could not find enough staff.

You would have thought that wage inflation would be going crazy as a result. Unfortunately for Japan, you would be wrong. The government has badgered companies, which are making record profits, to share the love. Some have responded with modest wage increases, but not enough to keep pace with prices, which are rising thanks to monetary stimulus and a 3 percentage-point increase in sales tax.