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Wage talks begin in Japan amid economic uncertainties posed by COVID

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Masakazu Tokura, chairman of Japan's most powerful business lobby known as Keidanren, urged companies to "respond proactively in consideration of social expectations," siding with the premier's call for aggressive pay hikes by businesses.

Wouldn't want to disappoint those "social expectations" whatever that means.

Keidanren: we will side with those expectations, urge, respond proactively and the end do nothing.

Remember within 2 weeks of Keidanrens urging at the beginning of the pandemic they were getting massive injections of public stimulus for the LDp while they debated months on the 100,000 direct one time stimulus?

Some urges are different than others.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

pay hikes aren't going to do squat. at least not the pay hikes they are proposing

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Companies will NOT increase wages with URGES and HOPES.

Why not reduce the ridiculously high corporate tax that is between 30 ~45 % ( depending on the amount of sales and profit) and then ORDER businesses to increase wages.

Without reducing the corporate tax small & medium sized businesses WILL NOT Do anything to improve wages when they are forced to pay more and more tax.

Many companies would like to give their staff a rise but the massive tax burden is putting a stop to that.

Think Kishida think!!!

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Japan's labour unions are pathetic. Their accommodative stance all these years is largely responsible for the situation they are now railing against.

7 ( +11 / -4 )

The best way to get a decent wage hike is to change jobs.

On your own initiative.

Waiting for some bunch of other people to do it for you is not the way to go about it. You have to act in your own best interest.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

The best way to get a decent wage hike is to change jobs.

And then, like the other article on the front page, find yourself in an either worse situation or having long gaps in employment. The illusion of choice. Companies and the government officials they collude with drive down wages in a race to the bottom. Even in previously profitable sectors like IT.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

talk is cheap.

even some may get salaries increased by some 2 or 3 % just look around you,how much costs food now/and i dont need to mention shrinking "sizes of products" at all/ so yes these "salary increases" will solve all but nothing.

business asusual,they will talk to make a face and "public effort" but since we live in real Japan all of us knows there will be no significant changes at all.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Still sticking to urgenomics and yet no pay increases. Set the minimum wage to equal a living wage then start urging.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Wouldn't it be nice if the PMs salary was performance based and deductions made when words like urge, encourage and hope are used. Things might actually happen.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

What you say definitely makes sense, but unfortunately, not in Japan.

Yeah. Unfortunately the only way to get across the board wage hikes is for people to be willing and able to change jobs across the board. It is the overall result of many people changing jobs to better ones that produces a force to result in higher wages for all.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I guess, you need quite an extraordinarily good magnifying glass to find a few affected employees working for one of those companies ‘that have seen their earnings recover to pre-pandemic levels.’ And only those few people getting approx. 3% more while all others won’t , well, I doubt that this will create anything, and surely no new capitalism.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

"I believe that a problem in Japan is that there was no redistribution (of wealth) even when there was growth," she said at the forum, attended by corporate managers from major firms and labor union officials.

…..

And nothing will change now, will it.

No company will pay more as a result of a government just ‘urging’ for wage hikes-Kishida is living in a fairyland or he really just doesn’t care about the electorate and for important reasons why should he?

Personally, I will never work for a Japanese company again due to their cavalier practices and greedy attitudes.

Amyone, looking to make some real money should aim to make contacts and to start their own venture instead of being exploited…

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Wage talks begin 

slow down……don’t go too fast.

i mean these are measures that should have been done, 10,20, even 30 years ago.

we Don’t want to rush into things, do we?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

cough dispatch companies cough

5 ( +5 / -0 )

You can blame Junichiro Koizumi and Heizo Takenaka for this mess.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

How about dismantling keidanren and rengo.

While they're at it, they must also immediately disband the hakken gaishas and outlaw all dispatch companies. Nothing but a bunch of leeches. All employment should be direct.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Those laws were implemented because companies wouldn’t stop sticking it to their employees.Love the inane argument that the solution to better wages is to “just find a new job.”

It is a point of this revisionist libertarian propaganda that if we go back to the days of child labor, 80 hour work weeks, company towns and people being ground up in industrial machines; a laissez-faire robber baron paradise with the union organizers being massacred all this entrepreneurial potential will be released for the benefit of society.

Despite all the historical record to the contrary. ie the USA, Japan, Britain etc...

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Pay increases won’t mean much to people who can’t go to work because of hundreds of kindergartens being closed by the latest Covid outbreak and thousands of businesses being closed due to the quasi SOE. People need real financial help not a bunch old blokes sitting around a table debating whether they will increase salaries by one or two percent some time in the next two years.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more. ' The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

If major firms agree to raise monthly wages so will all other stores raise the cost of services. If a company has to pay more they will only offset the cost by raising the prices on their products. Yes workers get paid more but those who go out and buy everyday necessities will also see a increase in cost of those goods. The only way to make more money is to make yourself "VALUABLE" to a company, knowledge cost. If you have little or no skills their is very little room for negotiations but if you have what the company needs they will pay the price because they value your talented skills. If you have skills and the company doesn't recognize your value then its simple go to another company that will value your talent and skills. Yes you need a job but these companies also need talented individuals, if not they will not survive the competition.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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