日本語道場 — Nihongo Dojo

～一方だ

~ippou da

continues to (a trend)

When to use it

Use ～一方だ in reports, analyses, and email to state that a situation keeps moving steadily in one direction with no sign of reversing. It carries a sense of an ongoing, one-way trend — most often an unwelcome one (costs rising, share falling, workload increasing). It is more analytical and written-sounding than ～ばかりだ, and unlike ～つつある it implies no leveling off.

Formation

Verbs: dictionary (plain non-past) form + 一方だ — 上がる一方だ、減る一方だ。Not used with ～た or ～ている.
i-adjectives: cannot attach directly; convert to a change-of-state verb — 高い → 高くなる一方だ。
na-adjectives: 深刻な → 深刻になる一方だ。
Nouns: need a verb — 赤字 → 赤字が続く一方だ／増加する一方だ。Sino-Japanese nouns often take する directly: 悪化する一方だ。
Polite/written variants: 一方です、一方である。Mid-sentence continuation: 一方で… (beware: 一方で also means "on the other hand," so keep 一方だ sentence-final when clarity matters).

Examples

Because of the exchange rate, import costs just keep rising.
If we don't act now, the losses will only keep growing.
It's been reported that the burden on staff keeps increasing.
With competitors cutting prices, our share continues to decline.
Domestic demand keeps falling, and we see no way out.