Kishida calls for aggressive wage hikes in push for wealth redistribution

And smile!

Yes my local Lawson, 09:00 to 22:00 is 820 yen per hour.

To clean the toilets, stack the shelves, mop the floor, make the sandwiches, prepare the trays of food, empty the garbage, fry everything that moves, even keep the forecourt free of litter.

To also make the coffee, advise customers, handle cash and bills.

Even to take parcels.

3%, serious you must be having a laugh.

Or... decrease city and prefectural taxes by 10%. There's your 10% increase in salaries and wages for everybody. But waaaait, that would mean him actually doing something and not just washing his hands. Plus less money into his pockets.

I am truly amazed when I see businesses advertising jobs for ¥900 , ¥1,000, or other ridiculous pathetic amounts. Nobody can live on those wages. Businesses don’t pay time and a half or even follow the current labor laws, so good luck with that wealth distribution plan.

I need to check that 820 yen, could be 9am.

Look, in my local Lawson the remuneration is posted in the toilets, 820 yen per hour 6 am to 10 pm.

That, even with benefits is not remotely a living wage.

Stay 30 minutes. Just watch them work.

People complaining about someone spending 7 man on food 笑, I wish. I managed to find a Japanese wife that loves to be a housewife but resents to cook or clean, her own midnight Uber eats snacks alone probably surpasses 7 man.

Stagflation,shrinkaflation and deflation ...

Wages at 850 yen ~1,000 yen an hour are NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE!!

Enough is enough.

how abt to show a good example and say work without salary?

sure you have a lot of savings...and finally you may understand real costs of living here...

but yes talk is cheap...completely pointless time wasting...

Yes, I believe labour market reforms are a necessary first step.

Next the income tax system ......

Material on Individual Income Taxation

https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/tax_policy/tax_system/income/index.html#a04

There is little or no incentive to create a market economy.

Materials on Corporate Taxation.

https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/tax_policy/tax_system/corporate/index.html#a02

There must be a means of simplification.

And tax relief for small/med businesses to enhance productivity.

Well something needs to be done here, 30 years and basically no movement in income…. It’s a start, and yes, the minimum wage need to go up to 1300¥. I see advertisements here for 850 an hour ffs

Japan didn’t get the memo that NeoLiberalism is dead. We can look forward to another few decades of laissez-faire pain before it sinks in.

https://newrepublic.com/article/155970/collapse-neoliberalism

This guy is no conservative. More like a Marxist following the WEF and Klaus Schwab's agenda. Any government using the words "wealth redistribution" is a puppet of communism.

The best way to increase workers earning power is by reduction of The various taxes each wage earner pays.

Increasing wages across the board may seem like a worthy deed, however, such wage increases lead to higher prices for consumers as companies must recover the cost of additional wages. Wage hikes also push earners into higher tax brackets. The resulting inflation from mandated wage hikes quickly negates any advantage of higher pay and leaves the worker with less than before government meddling.

Accelerating wage growth, which has been sluggish in Japan as the country had been plagued by deflation for years

Plagued by Deflation.

Is deflation some disease or natural disaster that Japan has been unfortunate of being victim of?

what Japan needs are more permanent jobs (there are too many people with temp work who just gets exploited)!

Fire the dead weight (i.e. old men in the high rank positions who have been working there forever - they are on high wages but the value they add to the co. is on the decline) so that it free up budget to convert temp staff to perm and a nice salary bump along with that

Kishida is clueless about how businesses work and have to remain solvent, not just for the moment, but for their survival in the future which government dopes create more obstacles. It's not like businesses can just print out money willy-nilly like the government.

Might wanna do something to encourage investment while they are at it. Just checked my bank account, I earned a grand total of 4 yen (yes, four yen) interest last month on a balance exceeding 5 million.

There’s an argument that “nobody would sell their labor for 1 yen an hour.” That argument, however, is nonsense. People will accept whatever they can get when it’s all they can get.

That counter argument is nonsense. Almost no one would work for 20 yen a day - indeed I suspect only those who had support from family members etc would even contemplate it.

And on the other side, the higher minimum wage rates are hiked, the bigger the disincentive to hire workers who may not be able to produce enough to be worth that higher level of compensation.

The notion that hiking the minimum wage rate alone will lead to across the board wage hikes is also completely wrong in my view. Minimum wage rate is not a lever for across the board wage increases.

What Japan needs is labour market reforms.

@Septim

In theory if that is what they were doing I would be the first one in line to cheer them on, but I really don't see where they have been emulating the CPC or CPV. As far as I can see their policies have trended entirely towards neoliberal capitalist style, but please correct me if I am wrong.

@Septim Dynasty

Following the superior model, nice.

At this point, the cost of purchasing groceries has gone up significantly to the point where this pay increases will only put us back where we were.

Admirable but it won't happen anytime soon. Abe, Suga, Kishida had been emulating the models from the Chinese Communist Party and Vietnamese Communist Party for years. Their mentor, Toshihiro Nikai, is heavily involved with the communists in China and Vietnam. It is not surprising for PM Kishida to try socialism but I highly doubt that Japanese neo-feudal capitalists will allow this to happen.

He’s not the strongest in math, or is he? Even after a five or ten percent raise of almost nothing you still remain with almost nothing. And the majority of population, estimated, isn’t even under the wings of a big business leader, but outside of the regularly paid workforce, like all children, students, pensioners, unemployed, many self-employed, part-timers and so on.

Kishida: Business leaders, won't you raise wages?

Business leaders: No.

Kishida: Okie dokie then!

Even 10% is not enought :

In 8 years of work in Japan, I only received an annual increase of 1000-2000 yen per month but every year my bonuses drop .... According to my employment contract, I am supposed to receive 4.5 months of bonus per year but in 2021, I only had 3 months which means that my annual salary has decreased while the profit of my company increased every year (and tax increased too) ...

There has to be a political will to fundamentally change restructure the disparity between full and part time employment contracts.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida calling for 3% is meaningless weasel words to 36% of the workforce on contracts that offer sweatshop salaries in relation to full time counterparts for completing the same roles.

Japan Part Time Employment

https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/part-time-employment

For those who’re already poor, and for the increasing number of newly poor, 3% is insultingly inadequate compensation and recompense for suffering the insufferable and enduring the unendurable that is increasingly their lot. To avoid making a bad situation any worse, the authorities should be doing their utmost to ensure that those earning the least get proportionally more than those who can afford to wait a bit longer. Whether they do it to some kind of formula, such as 10% extra for those earning under ¥4m, then 5% for between ¥4-6m, or through other expedients such as tweaking taxation thresholds or direct income support monetary transfers, that’s up to them. But do it they must! People are hurting.

Iron LadToday  08:04 am JST

Very nice, Kishida.

Be nicer if he actually did something.

The three business leaders sitting there were not interested, the guy on the left seems annoyed by the Mr.Kishida's call!

Need measures to support the Small- and Medium-sized industries, who have seen business decline over the last two years, squeezed by the large corporations, with bankruptcies and companies just dissolving and disappearing.

They are barely able to pay current wages, let alone offer a rise. There is also the large pool of freelance and part-time workers who underpin factories, service industries, hospitality and entertainment venues, and shops, who have lost income, help for them would be appreciated too.

Inequality, both as observed and Gini coefficient, is going up in Japan. Part of this is due to low wages, but the other part, like the West, is that the 1% or 0.1% are getting much richer. They are doing this not through wages but rentier-style through assets. Every so often, we get "Japanese household savings hit record levels" type reports, but that is completely skewed toward the few, mostly the old, with huge assets. Median assets will be very low. A simple way to increase equality would be to properly tax assets and remove the consumption tax on food. This would affect pretty much everyone, not just those working for these (blue chip) companies Kishida is asking to raise wages.

And the jokes just keep on coming …

3% hike....laughable...

“Wage hikes mean future investments”

No. It’s the other way around. Investments increase productivity that results in wage hikes. Whether to raise wages or not is entirely up to businesses. It’s not something that politicians can tell them to do.

He has a wife and kids 70 man is a bit over the top but not impossible especially when apples are 200 yen each etc..

He said "Hitori gurashi in a cheap area".

@Rob Mass He has a wife and kids 70 man is a bit over the top but not impossible especially when apples are 200 yen each etc..

Headline: Oh, wealth redistribution? Promising start.

Article: Nevermind, it is still just capitalist shell games. A 4% pay raise can't even begin to be called "wealth redistribution". Cutting out the top few % and using that money to fund everyone else would be a start, but as the top few % consist of the people making these laws, it is very unlikely that will happen pre-revolution.

Rob Nads

Stay out of others’ refrigerators. You should be more angry at a system built for the wealthy by the wealthy not someone eating ¥70,000 of food monthly. It’s time to give people a raise.

Where are the slums in Japan?

Look up Airin-chiku in Osaka for starters.

Tabemono 7man yen monthly

Wtf are you eating - waygu steaks every night? If you are single and living alone, there is no way you need to spend that much on groceries unless you are really indulging.

As long as pleasing Keidanren is part of the equation, it's just going to be more of the same - hot air, smoke, and mirrors.

@Ken

Whatever you are doing in Japan may I politely suggest that by doing some trade with your own home country and vice versa that it may be possible to produce extra income-start small and get big…

another thing they can do is CUT INCOME TAX for people making less than 250,000 yen a month. They can also cut the overpriced taxation of 2 income households where the couple is punished for having 2 incomes by having their taxes go up. Which is pointless in the first place since SO MANY people have to incomes to make ends meet. So raising their taxes will have the opposite effect.

Also since about 40% of the workforce are not full time, how about increasing the benefits of non full time workers including part timers and contract workers as well as freelancers. They should be able to get Shakai Hoken NOT Kokumin Hoken which will help them tremendously

In fact, do away with the Kokumin Hoken and only have Shakai Hoken for everyone. Plus, non full timers MUST get bonuses based on the same guidelines of their full time workers.

@Iron Lad

Yes, me too-big changes

I see more and more beggars in Japan-I usually try to help them out too.

He would 'like them to cooperate'..

More would likes and urges from the king of uselessness.

He urged companies to do so. And if they don't, he threatens to put his hands in his pocket.

how about a four day work week, zero overtime?

@Zoroto

Slums exist in every capitalist countries, Singapore included.

All this huffing and puffing for a max 3% increase. It's laughable, needs to be over 10% to catch up to all the price hikes and tax increases.

I'll believe it when I see it in my salary packet, like other things.

Increasing lower wages will push up prices and negate the value of the raises, whilst punishing the poor and unwaged.

Reduce the wages of the higher paid and use this cash to raise the wages of the lower paid. This will not lead to an increase in prices, so people will be genuinely better off, and the unwaged will not be pushed further into poverty.

Yeah, let's "ask" business leaders to raise forever stagnant wages that is long past due because doing so in the past has lead to nothing.

Time for action. Hike the minimum wage and punish profitable corporates that refuse to give raises in line with their earnings growth, while exhorting labor unions to take a tougher stance during wage negotiations.

Iron Lad 08:04 am JST

Very nice, Kishida.

Japan is changing.

It is indeed, I saw an old man begging outside Kinshicho station yesterday.

Kishida may be well-intentioned but he has as much chance of succeeding as a snowflake in the Sahara desert, Shinzo Abe and Keidanren will see to that.

Hitori gurashi in a cheap area

Apaato 7 man yen monthly

Tabemono 7man yen monthly

Zeikin

Konetsuhi

Keitai

Transport

I need to fly back to see my aging parents

Clothing

Basics

Wife and kids

Phew,I'm looking for an exit from Japan but I can't afford an air ticket.

Sinking deep into the unknown future.

also wages should quadruple and hours should be halved

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday asked business leaders to raise wages more aggressively for employees as part of his pursuit of wealth redistribution.

Theater of the absurd. The oligarchs have already accumulated an absurd amount of wealth to themselves and are increasing those sums through rents and investments.

Only progressive taxation and a UBI will result in "wealth redistribution".

Keidanren, meanwhile, does not plan to encourage its member companies to consider wage hikes across the board.

And this is coda for all Kishida's urges to Japan Inc. Just an empty ritualistic ceremony to placate the masses by these suits at the Imperial Hotel.

Very nice, Kishida.

Japan is changing.

How about raising the minimum wage higher?

DochiraToday  07:43 am JST

Anyway good to see Kishida following through on this election promise.

Until anyone actually does as he suggests it's all just pointless pie-in-the-sky talk. That's all the LDP are fit for, and they're not even very good at it.

Surely, Kishida is suffering from the early onset of dementia as he keeps on repeating the same request over and over…

wages are so low in Japan why do they think some token increase is a solution? It would have to double or triple to matter

Kishida is right to lobby employers to raise wages. On the other hand its the govt that sets the minimum wage - so I hope they will hike the pathetically low minimum wages - in the case of Hokkaido less than ¥1000 per hour.

Anyway good to see Kishida following through on this election promise.

Asking is not being agressive .

Telling or forcing is being agressive.

Wife cleared up the ribbon thing for me, as I’ve seen a lot of politicians were interested them lately. Apparently it has their name and the care givers contact details should they wander off. So now I know.

Yup, all he has to do is raise the minimum wage by a few hundred yen...so simple yet a foreign concept for the ruling dinosaurs

If he were serious he would raise the minimum wage as that he can do, but I’m guessing none of the special cabinet advisers/ consultants (friends voters rejected) have actually met someone on minimum wage and just can’t imagine being on minimum wage. Nice rosette ribbon things, is that to show how important they are? Or did they win some competition?

Other new nomics in Japan, redistribute wealth? That just another socialist goal, bigger companies can afford that smaller company with thin profit. Are they being expected to do the same thing?

Keidanren, meanwhile, does not plan to encourage its member companies to consider wage hikes across the board.

so that’s the end of that idea then.

He has ‘asked’ them? That’s just the same as urge and suggest. More vote grubbing bull poop!