Top Japan business lobby to request pay increases that outpace inflation

if Keidanren has no power to enact it's "request", what is the point of..... Keidanren?

Core consumer prices in Japan climbed 3.7 percent in November, a nearly 41-year high.

I seriously doubt this is the real inflation rate. But when measuring they always don't count volatile fresh food and energy prices, which of course fluctuate, but are sky-high, making real inflation much higher. I expect only a handful of large companies will raise salaries, but many of us will not see any raises, only increase in costs and probably taxes!

It sounds great but nothing will come of it. The cost of living will continue to increase and the salaries will continue to decrease. In the last twenty years salaries have decrease by 30% and the cost of living has increased by 50%. You don't have to be an economist to see the disaster taking place in the Japanese economy.

Oh more hot air !!

I think there are economy concepts that explain why you cannot just increase salary to match inflation without fixing the structural problems, so this will not work though it might encourage some companies to be less greedy on the increase. Anyway there are so many articles along the year mentioning request for salary increase from different entities.

Japanese companies have no incentive to increase wages when the government keeps rising taxes on corporations year on year. Give me a break. I don't have a macro or micro economic degree to understand this common and basic point of how a country operates. Geeeeez!

That attempt is leading to nothing, because only an estimated third of the population is in an active and productive working or producing environment. The big majority won’t get anything that outpaces their inflation effects. Unproductive sectors, children, seniors, public services and so on, they aren’t covered at all by whatever ‘influential business lobby’ or politicians and their pay raise recommendations.

They keep bloviating about this supposed 'virtuous cycle' in which wages and prices both increase. For better quality of life, there is nothing good about the price-increase half of this: you want your wages to grow, and for prices to stay flat so that you can buy things and enjoy the full fruits of your labor; not see the gains taken away by increased prices, forcing you to work even harder to hopefully get another raise that will make up for the price hikes!

The only one for whom this is 'virtuous' is the debt-burdened government, who sees the real value of its obligations melt away as prices rise higher and higher. The workers lose all the way, stuck on a hamster wheel chasing gains that will always be taken away in the form of higher consumer prices.

The only way a raise will happen across the board is with legislation. But that won't happen, will it?

This is just hot-air. Instead, get ready for more tax rises to cover increased military spending, the sending of public money to the Ukraine and a falling number of tax payers.

It's only going to get worse without the political will to change the status quo of a race to the bottom.

Does wage even matter to the vast majority of Japanese? A recent survey showed that more than 80% of Japanese will mot bother with a job paying 2x salary. With so many people having hundreds of million of yens of assets paying interests and dividends, there wont be much demand for higher wages.

Good.

Top Japan business lobby to request pay increases that outpace inflation

Every request from Keidanren is met with massive taxpayer subsidized budgets within weeks whether it is financial markets fluctuations, inflationary pressures, pandemics, terrorism, disasters affecting their bottom line.

At a Tuesday press conference following a meeting of top Keidanren officials over the guidelines' content, Chairman Masakazu Tokura called for "wage rises across the supply chain" and indicated he wants to see wages rise at a variety of businesses, regardless of their size.

Living wages for the public are always urges, requests, pleas to business leaders which are ignored for decades.

It is pure, neo-liberal paradigm socialism for the rich and the LDP model is more public treasury wealth transfers to corporations for every economic eventuality.

Only a paradigm shift will change this.

Most Japanese labours work at small or medium companies.

"Keidanren" is just selfish group for large corporation only.  

LDP Kishida regime satisfied Keidanren including major power corporations who want to depend on nuclear plants by very optimistic revised nuclear policy last December, this looks like "gift in return" to regime.

request denied... but by all means please keep "requesting"

If you need any more proof of Japan's race to the bottom, just check out the job adverts proudly boasting how they offer 950 yen per hour!

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The minimum wage here should be ¥1,500 to ¥2,000 an hr. I believe most jobs pay ¥900 to ¥1,200 an hr currently.

I see many full time haken job listings that list their hourly wages at 1,400 yen to 1,900 yen. How much are the haken agencies making?

I see many full time haken job listings that list their hourly wages at 1,400 yen to 1,900 yen. How much are the haken agencies making?

Around 30% margin, but their profit after all overheads/expenses, is around 1.2%. Not a very efficient system (why am I surprised). They should just be abolished and workers employed directly, and given that 30%.

https://media.agent-bank.com/categories/haken/hakenrieki

They should just be abolished and workers employed directly, and given that 30%.

Far too simple. Also, the companies would then have to pay 50% of their employees' shakaihoken contributions, and they certainly don't want to being doing that!

Oh, I'm sure they will JUMP at the chance, especially after being rewarded for not doing so previously and can just claim they need bailouts at any time and get that, too.

"" demonstrate their "social responsibility""

NOT GONNA HAPPEN, they been asking them fpr so long and companies will respond by giving very little or even ZERO, the time for asking is long gone, it is time to DEMAND, not ASK.

Wages probably won't increase, though there may be an increase in the number of low paid jobs available.

Who will get those, remains in question - overseas trainee recruits, school leavers - who knows, for sure, in Japan, paying for University education is going to feel a squeeze and more will leave education without a Degree, which in turn will feed the Lower Pay requirements.