Kishida asks companies to raise wages next year

In a meeting of Japan's powerful business lobby known as Keidanren, Kishida said, "To distribute (wealth) by raising wages is to invest in the future."

Ask.

Keidanren, formally known as the Japan Business Federation, does not plan to seek wage hikes across the board or set a numerical target for member companies.

*And it shall be ignored. As with the scores of previous urges by PMs.

Shows you where the real power lies.

I like a good pantomime as much as anyone, but this is getting boring....

Before asking businesses to raise wages, the government should stimulate the economy by increasing public spending. No businesses will invest and raise wages in a depressed economy where supply exceeds demand.

Abenomics trickle down for all to see, especially for those who believed the LDP and voted them back in.

An ask is no better than an urge. Nothing will become of it. He’s just playing out his political duty to make it look like he is doing something. If he was serious the wage hikes would be pushed through the diet and mandated across the board, including getting rid of that ludicrous ¥950 p/h minimum wage.

I work for a famous company in Japan but my salary is not high at all. I wonder I should go to the U.S for work at Starbucks. Wages in the U.S are increasing rapidly, making me so jealous.

Where are Japan's pathetic labour unions? If their members continue to become impoverished as corporations rake in higher and higher profits to spend on dividends, maybe it's time for some strikes and walkouts.

Kishida could have pointed out that over 60% of Japan's GDP is consumption-driven, so everyone would eventually be better off with higher workers wages.

No businesses will invest and raise wages in a depressed economy...

They didnt do that during times of high gdp growth and record-high share prices, either. The modern neo-liberal model is to minimize labor costs so as to maximize profits, regardless of the economic circumstances.

as he seeks to achieve his policy goal of wealth distribution

Sounds like what the CCP would do.

Yeah, raise the wages so that it appears to people that life is getting better and wealth is being fairly distributed. Then soon after the consumption/income/pension/city tax goes up and takes it back off you! He is Abe light! A copy of a copy of a copy!

Higher wages = more tax money

he said so and guess what?

party is over,nothing will happen.

let me bet.

business as usual.

"Next year" sounds like the Japanese version of  mañana while "asking" companies for more salary for workers smacks of Oliver Twist with his empty soup bowl. Is this Kishida's vision of "new capitalism"?

Kuroda has said higher prices should come with higher wages.

Ok, so if prices go up, say, 2% wages will go up 2%. What good is that? The net wage increase will be less than 2% after taxes, so workers are worse off.

Let's try trickle up for a change. Raise the minimum wage!

Maybe they'll implement a 100 yen raise over 5 years. Seems legit.

"What's important is for each company to consider (how much they can raise wages),"

Absent any mandate the answer to that in Japan is always “zero”.

"What's important is for each company to consider (how much they can raise wages)," Keidanren chief Masakazu Tokura told the meeting attended by corporate executives.

Same strategy as before then. Politicians ask politely if companies wouldn’t mind considering getting off the working poor business model. Their employees overworked, underpaid, under appreciated and no way out. The productivity model of Kings….

Kishida, Abe, Jiminto , fill in the blank, “Raise wages (if you like), please’

Company boss answer. “Yeah, naa.”

Kishida and the likes, ”Thankyou for your time. At least we tried, tell them we tried. “

merry Xmas!

So the job of lawmakers, instead of making wage increase a law, is to ask. And to them that’s a job done?

Japan is basically the true form of late-stage capitalism.

Good. Otherwise, they won't be able to afford all that milk he wants everyone to drink.

Is there any respected economist who argues that hiking the minimum wage would lead to broad across the board pay increases?

Or that having central government fix wages is an effective and efficient way of having the economy run? (Erdogan in Turkey just announced a 50% hike, so I wonder if people think that his way of running their economy is a winner.)

It looks to me that Kishida like Abe before him is trying to plaster over the cracks, rather than make structural reforms, as the means to achieving the aims.

Unlike academic courses, vocational education is rarely even feasible with social distancing or on Zoom. I'm guessing Kishida has little experience of electrical engineering, plumbing, hair styling or other trades. There is not an app for this sort of thing.

Politicians ask for 3% because 3% of their salary is a lot. 3% of minimum wage is toss all, even if they throw in some milk vouchers. Ordinary people have a small amount of cash to live on and are particularly susceptible to rises in food and energy prices. I doubt politicians even do their own shopping.

Soon Japan will just be another mediocre Asian country-shame really

Thank you, Kishida!