government's domestic travel discount program. dining - out has shown signs of a pick - up from the plunge seen during the pandemic, albeit mainly in terms of small groups ( chart 5 ). as for goods consumption, that of durable goods has seen the following developments : while sales of new cars have increased on the back of a pick - up in production reflecting the waning of supply - side constraints, sales of household electrical appliances have declined for seasonal items in particular, presumably due in part to relatively higher temperatures in november than in normal years. when fluctuations are smoothed out, consumption of nondurable goods has increased, mainly for clothes, although the effects of high inflation have been seen for food. the employment and income situation has improved moderately on the whole. labor market conditions have been considerably tight, with various related indicators being at levels close to those observed prior to the pandemic and during the bubble economy of the late 1980s ( chart 6 ). under these circumstances, the number of regular employees has increased moderately, mainly in the medical, healthcare, and welfare services industry as well as the information and communications industry, both of which have faced a severe labor shortage ; the number of non - regular employees has also risen moderately, mainly in the medical, healthcare, and welfare services industry as well as the face - to - face services industry ( chart 7 ). total employee income has continued to increase in nominal terms due to moderate rises in both the number of employees and total cash earnings per employee. c. price developments in japan next, i would like to talk about price developments in japan. let me first touch on the price trend of goods and services traded within the domestic corporate sector. reflecting the earlier raw material cost increases, the year - on - year rate of change in the producer price index ( ppi ), which covers goods prices, has remained high, marking 9. 5 percent for january 2023 ( chart 8 ). that in the services producer price index ( sppi ), which covers the price of services within the corporate sector, has also continued to see a moderate rise, although the rise has not been as steep as that of the ppi. looking at the price indexes that divide demand into four stages of intermediate demand from the upstream to downstream stages of supply chains, the earlier raw material cost increases have continued to be passed on to selling prices at the midstream to downstream stages. in this situation, the consumer price index ( cpi ) has continued to

will be asking employees to change not only their skillsets, but also their mind - sets. while the focus is often on the word “ digital ”, the truly challenging part, budgets notwithstanding, is the “ transformation ”. we can purchase and deploy the latest technology, but if we simply automate existing processes, we will accomplish nothing. i am sure that many of us are guilty of typing a letter, printing it so we can sign it, then scanning and emailing it. how many steps could we save simply by using an electronic signature? what i just described might seem like a harmless quirk, but let me give you another example. about 15 years ago, our bank purchased a banknote processing machine that could count and authenticate hundreds of banknotes per minute, separate the clean notes from mutilated ones and package or destroy them accordingly. previously, the process was done manually, with our currency staff hand - counting the banknotes, but this machine automated the process and produced reports that our internal audit team vetted and approved. having that machine should have drastically improved both efficiency and productivity, but initially, it did not. why? because one member of staff was not comfortable signing the reports until she had verified, by hand - counting, that the stacks of clean notes were the same number the machine had recorded. that was clearly an example of parallel testing! that might sound like an extreme case, but the two examples reveal the same thing : we, often to our detriment, hold on to outmoded thinking because “ that ’ s the way we ’ ve always done it. ” this means that our employees will need to be coached into moving away from traditional modes of thinking as more efficient methods become available. both examples i cited were focused on processes, but there is another area where changing mind - sets is critical, and more challenging. culture. here ’ s a quote from roland berger ’ s report, “ central banking hr of the future : driving strategic change, ” that describes central banks. “ central banks are often traditional companies with a rather hierarchical, historically grown organisational structure. they are often divided into “ suborganisations ” or divisions, each performing a specific function. targets are then defined on the level of the separate departments – often without considering the organisation as a whole. ” i think we can agree that much of this sounds familiar. the central bank of the future the report details the changes that are essential for central banks to survive and