Japan August Core Machinery Orders Fall 3.3% on Month

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An employee welds metal parts at a sheet metal forming factory in the Ota ward of Tokyo, Japan.

Japan's core machinery orders fell 3.3 percent in August from the previous month, government data showed on Thursday, a sign that slowing demand in China and the broadening pain from Europe's debt crisis are sapping corporate appetite to spend.

The fall was bigger than the median forecast for a 2.5 percent decline in a Reuters poll and followed a 4.6 percent rise in July.

Compared with a year earlier, core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, declined 6.1 percent in August, the data showed.

The Cabinet Office, which compiles the data series, kept its assessment of machinery orders unchanged, saying they are seesawing.