The absolute rate was 13 per 100,000 people. At that level, a major rise is enough to get public health officials to pay attention, it isn't a signal of our society crumbling before our eyes.
That statistic is meaningless if you don't compare it to the absolute rate for other causes of death. In the US, suicide is the second-leading cause of death* of people aged 15-34, and very high on the list for ages 10-15 and 35-54 (source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_02.pdf, pages 18-19). "A signal of our society crumbling before our eyes", maybe not, but if the second-leading cause of death in a large age group was a bacterial disease, and it has increased by a double-digit percentage in the last decade, people would be calling that a public health emergency.
* Accidents being #1. And since accidents are, well, accidents, suicide is arguably the leading cause of death that we can meaningfully do something about.
I think it is at least instructive to look at the rate; I live in a town of roughly 10,000 people. The rate translates into ~1 person here committing suicide in a year. I don't want anyone to kill themselves, but it isn't a shocking number when put in those terms.
The US uses this definition for suicide. http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/definitions.ht...
> Suicide
> Death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with an intent to die as a result of the behavior.
That "intent to die" part makes it hard to decide whether something was suicide or accidental death, and we know it causes some incorrect classification.