University students in Japan are finding it tougher to line up graduate jobs, as the coronavirus pandemic casts its shadow over the economy.

The government surveyed 4,770 students graduating next March from 62 universities.

The Lower House of Japan's Diet has begun deliberating on a bill to revise the preventive vaccination law to secure vaccines for the coronavirus.

The bill would make coronavirus vaccinations free. If the vaccines are found to cause health problems, the government will pay for treatment.

Japanese business leaders are urging US President-Elect Joe Biden to restore international order.

The Chairman of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, called in a statement for close cooperation between the new governments of Japan and the United States, and further improvement in bilateral relations.

Officials in Japan are reporting more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day.

The surge in infections is especially high in the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas and the prefectures of Kanagawa and Aichi.

NHK has learned that 306 new cases of the coronavirus were reported across Japan as of 3 p.m. on Thursday, taking the total since the start of the outbreak above 100,000.

A Japanese government survey shows the country's smoking rate fell to a record low last year.

The health ministry surveyed about 5,700 people aged 20 or over last November.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has welcomed Japan's commitment to reducing the country's carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide announced the goal in his policy speech on Monday.

Japan's financial regulators will conduct an on-site inspection at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in connection with a full-day trading halt it suffered earlier this month.

The Financial Services Agency's decision to conduct the probe came after it received a report from the TSE explaining the causes of the halt and outlining measures to prevent a recurrence.

Japan's Coast Guard has started testing an unmanned aircraft on Thursday to learn whether it can carry out key duties, including search and rescue and maritime surveillance.

US defense firm General Atomics developed the 12-meter-long drone, called the SeaGuardian. It has a wingspan of 24 meters.

Japan's newly appointed ambassador to China has suggested that Japan and China should move on from their current unstable relationship and build more steady ties through high-level communications.

Tarumi Hideo, known as one of the top China experts in the Japanese foreign ministry, spoke in an exclusive interview with NHK before he leaves for his position in Beijing next month.

The Japanese government has lodged a protest over two Chinese patrol ships that navigated in Japan's territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands for more than two days. It's the longest intrusion into the waters in eight years.

Coast guard officials say the Chinese vessels entered the waters off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Sunday morning. They left the waters on Tuesday evening, more than 57 hours later.

The Bank of Japan says the Producer Price Index sank 0.1 percent in September, excluding the effects of last year's consumption tax hike. It's the first drop in four months as business activities remained sluggish. The decline was larger year-on-year at 2.3 percent.

Weakening demand for goods including steel and iron, machinery and textiles was behind the drop.

A report by the BOJ highlights that prices in Japan are under downward pressure amid the pandemic.

The central bank estimates that Japan's output gap stood at minus 4.83 percent in the April-June quarter. A negative reading means that demand is falling short of supply.

Japan's machinery orders rose in August from the previous month, increasing for a second straight month.

The Cabinet Office says major machinery makers received about 7.1 billion dollars' worth of orders from domestic companies, up 0.2 percent in yen terms from July.