Japan Press Weekly

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2014 January 8 - 14 TOP3 [LABOR]

Corporate internal reserves grow by 5 trillion yen amid falling wages

Large corporations with capital of more than one billion yen increased their internal reserves to 272 trillion yen in the FY 2012, up five trillion yen from the previous year.

In contrast, average annual wages of workers decreased by 600,000 yen from a peak in 1997 to about 4.08 million yen while major corporate reserves went up by 130 trillion yen during the same period of time.

These figures came out in calculations made by the Japan Research Institute of Labor Movement (Rodo-soken), a think-tank of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren).

According to the data, Toyota Motor ranked at the top of the list with 15.20 trillion yen in internal reserves followed by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group at 9.92 trillion yen and NTT Group at 9.76 trillion yen.

Large Japanese corporations and financial institutions have benefited from continued tax breaks, pumping up their retained earnings by holding down overall wages and replacing full-time workforce with temporary employment, which in turn contributes to the prolonged ailing economy.

The Federation of National Public Service Employees’ Union (Kokko-roren) points out that the use of just a small portion of corporate internal reserves can create jobs and raise wages at the same time without waiting for “a virtuous cycle of economy”.

Drawing down 1% of retained reserves will make it possible to generate an extra 1,000 jobs with an annual salary of three million yen in 81 out of 131 major corporations. At Toyota alone, more than 50,000 jobs can be created.

The use of 3% in reserves would enable the top 95 corporations to provide all employees, including part-timers, with an increase of 16,000 yen in monthly wages. As for Toyota, making use of only 0.67% of internal reserves would be enough to achieve this.