Japanese firms offer highest pay hike in 32 years in spring wage talks

In term of real wages, it's still can not be comparable. It still down.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/04/08/economy/japan-real-wages-down/

The overall results were in line with a separate survey conducted by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, the country's biggest labor union.

According to its most recent tally, the average pay hike at its member unions stood at 5.17 percent. 

Only 16.5% of employees in Japan belong to labor unions, so consistently using this shunto data as evidence of sustainable nominal wage growth is deceitful, particularly when inflation-adjusted real wages have fallen in Japan for 24 consecutive months.

—

Labor Data Source: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01571/

Neither I nor any of my acquaintances have seen any sort of gifted increase other than that given after our annual evaluation. Not to mention most work for pretty well known companies.

A tiny minority of Japanese firms that have benefitted obscenely from LDP economic policy have offered middling pay hikes ia tardy 32 years later spring wage talks

Fixed for accuracy.

The major firms, but unfortunately between 80 - 90 % of businesses in Japan are SMBs. The major firms could afford it because of all the low cost services and supplies they demanded from their sub-contractors and suppliers.

These statistics only skew the image that things are looking for for workers. They arent, real wages are still down considerably, and to realistically catch up these increases have to be maintained at 5% or more for at least the next 5 years!

These kind of news bits always confuse me. Why bother publishing them at all, the majority of people have not seen any wage increases and to pretend that all is fine and dandy is just gaslighting them.

"Japanese firms offer the highest pay hike in 32 years in spring wage talks."

I am a teacher of little kids and used to make difficult things easy to understand for the cherubim.

There was a once flourishing oasis until 34 years of drought made it difficult not to live, but to survive. The owners of the water sources gathered, forced by the thirst of the sands. And they decided to take a dropper and pour 2 drops of water on the dunes. Satisfied with the ritual, they continued with business as usual.

Sorry to rain on the parade, inflation rate is nearly 3% so the actual increase is next to nothing.

Pay hike is not sufficient enough to compensate for increase in prices of basic goods.

Salaries are still pathetic in comparison to so much of the G7.

I see that nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.

Guys, is fricking 5%!!! 5!! That's equal to nothing!! Is just a blatant and callous insult to all work force out there. The food prices, living expenses, services, ALL doubled or more in the last 5 years, and we are talking about 5% pocket money to a Gross salary?? And guess what, you get extra taxed for that 5% also.

The crash of the Yen made my salary loose 45% on its value, compared to 5 or 6 years ago. 45%!!! And you are talking about a 5% only increase?? :)))

Not only the increase of just over 5% is minimal, but it is only the initial tally.

Wait until the inflation gets under control again.

Today, yen against dollar and euro is dropping as usual : (156.5/$ and 169.8/€).

Note that records will be broken easily and so there is still for some way to yen decrease. Not looking good objectively for the next monthsat least.

Moreover the Japanese workforce is diminishing with all possible women and old people working now. There is simply no possible additional fuel to the Japanese economy, relying on international business to bring back currencies which isn't enough to support the burden of interest rate of the debt...

a positive cycle of pay and price increases

They keep spouting this propaganda, as if price increases were somehow good for wage-earners. The true positve cycle is between pay and productivity increases, with no price increases, so your spending power goes up all the time and improving technology enables you to produce more. The only thing price increases do is take away the value of any wage gains you might have gotten.

Fax and additional working hours is not the solution for sure.

Meaningless for most people, at my place we get a 5% pay raise max if we get a full rank up. Otherwise it is 0.5% max if you get the highest review otherwise it is 0% or negative, which is a thing.

Wow!! A whole 5%.....what a load of bs propaganda. The vast majority of the work force will see NO increase what so ever.

Can't wait for that next 5% increase in 2056.............

hold on, I haven't even seen the 5% increase in 2024 yet......

So when does the next ACTUAL raise come?

Many freelancers (or folks employed as "independent providers") will be now be doing their accounts with Invoice Seido for the first time. We just got ours back and my tax bill went up 125,000, which was only for a half year from October. It is essentially a pay cut.

This is OK if you're a full-time worker at a unionized or large corporation which accounts for many less people than it did 32 years ago. There are so many more part-time and contract workers these days, which I believe is around 40% of the workforce.

If they can boost the minimum wage to at least 1,200-1,400 yen an hour, it may spark a much more stable and long-term domestic spending.

Japan is cheap, it's companies are cheap and workers haven't many rights.

I was talking to my Dutch son in law at the weekend.

He works in a factory there.

300% wages for shift work on Sundays and national holidays.

Goes up to 450% for the night shift.

A Japanese person could only dream of those benefits

Which companies raise wages when Japanese GDP is failing?

No company is going to raise wages in such a situation.

This article just doesn’t add up…