Japan Press Weekly

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2024 July 24 - 30 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

496 listed companies in 2023 pay 10% more to shareholders while offering only 2.2% pay hikes

In fiscal 2023, 496 listed companies earned consolidated profits of 43.1 trillion yen, up four trillion yen (or 10%) from 39.1 trillion yen in the previous year. The amount of the payout in capital gains from these companies to their shareholders increased by 1.4 trillion yen (10%) to 15 trillion yen from 13.7 trillion yen. This was revealed by the Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission’s own calculation based on these companies’ financial statements.

According to the JCP calculations, in 2023, the average gross annual wage per employee in 496 companies went up only by 2.2% to 8.29 million yen from 8.11 million yen. However, as the core consumer price index, the basis for calculating real wages, rose by 3.5%, the 2.2% increase in wages failed to keep pace with the inflation, meaning a decline in real wages.

Among executives of the 496 companies, the number of those who received annual compensation of more than 100 million yen reached 1,106, up 112 from a year earlier, hitting a record high since 2010 when listed firms were obliged to include the amount of compensation paid to executives in their financial statements.

This indicates that listed corporations in Japan in regard to the use of their huge profits are generous to their investors and board members while taking a negative stance toward pay hikes for workers.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Tamura Tomoko in her speech at the July 13 lecture meeting commemorating the 102nd anniversary of the JCP founding cited Toyota Motor as an example. In FY2023, Toyota recorded a net profit of five trillion yen. The Japanese car giant spent two trillion yen for dividends on stocks and paid compensation 60% higher than that paid in 2022 to its chair Toyota Akio. In contrast, the total amount the auto maker paid to its employees increased by only 4.9 billion yen - equivalent to 0.09% of the profit.