Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 6 - 12 [LABOR]

Some corporations move to increase wages

There has been a move to increase wages in some corporations, since Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo in January at the Diet proposed that the government act to achieve a wage hike target to end the ongoing deflationary recession.

Leading distributor Seven & i Holdings Co., Ltd. announced in March that it will raise salaries paid to regular employees of the group’s 54 major companies. The group will also push up the pay scale and give annual pay raises, covering 53,500 regular workers. For example, a 35-year-old employee with children will receive 120,000 yen more in her/his annual income.

Leading convenience store chain Lawson, Inc. already decided to increase seasonal bonuses for full-time workers.

Sato Ryuzo, professor emeritus of economics at New York University, said in the local Shizuoka Shimbun on March 5 that it was the JCP that has long insisted on the need to use a portion of the internal reserves of large corporations for higher wages and it was the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan that have ignored that option.

Sato pointed out that Prime Minister Abe in February requested pay raises on the occasion of a meeting with the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) in line with the proposal presented by the JCP, the opposite end of the political spectrum from the LDP.

Following Shii’s proposal in January, other JCP representatives, including Ichida Tadayoshi and Kasai Akira in early February and Daimon Mikishi in mid-February, also demanded that the government raise the minimum wage and support small- and medium-sized enterprises in addition to providing general wage increases.

In response to their demands, Finance Minister Aso Taro said that large corporations certainly have enough capital reserves to increase wages. Prime Minister Abe said that if management is able to increase corporate profits, he will request that they implement wage increases.

Like the JCP, Sato in the Shizuoka Shimbun also argued that job creation and pay increases are of major importance to put Japan’s economy back on a growth track after overcoming the state of deflation.

The move towards pay increases is a positive move but it is limited to regular employees. Shii on March 5 said in the Diet that the only way to end the deflationary recession is a wage hike for all workers, including non-regular and contingent workers.


Related past articles:
> Shii demands gov’t support for wage hike
[February 20, 2013]
> Gov’t should raise minimum wage and support SMEs: JCP Daimon [February 21, 2013]
> Shii at Lower House urges Abe to implement 3 policies to end recession [February 1, 2013]