Japan Press Weekly

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2012 December 26 - 2013 January 8 [LABOR]

Small portion of corporate internal reserves can increase wages by 10,000 yen per month

Many large corporations, by using less than 3% of their internal reserves, can raise workers’ wages by 10,000 yen per month, the Federation of National Public Service Employees’ Unions (Kokko-roren) estimated.

Kokko-roren said that big companies should be socially responsible by plowing some of their 270 trillion yen of corporate internal reserves back into the society.

The federation estimated how many jobs will be created if 132 major companies use 1% of their internal reserves to hire people and what percentages of internal reserves is needed to give a 10,000 yen monthly pay increase to all workers, including non-regular workers.

In the former case, 81 of the 132 corporations surveyed could hire 1,000 more people each. Among them, 8 companies, including Canon and Honda, could create over 10,000 jobs each.

Regarding a wage hike, Kokko-roren surveyed 92 companies which disclosed the number of non-regular workers employed. Of them, 78 companies can raise wages by 10,000 yen per month by using less than 3% of their internal reserves.

Toyota can offer a 10,000 yen monthly wage hike to its 400,000 employees by just using 0.43% of its internal reserves.

Kokko-roren proposed that major corporations utilize a small portion of their internal reserves to create jobs and increase wages.

As of FY2011, corporate internal reserves held by all companies in Japan totals 460 trillion yen.