Japan Press Weekly

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2014 December 24 - 2015 January 6 [POLITICS]

Large companies’ internal reserves reach all-time high

The amount of internal reserves of large corporations in Japan has set a new record, the Japan Research Institute of Labor Movement (Rodo-soken) revealed recently.

According to the survey, the amount of internal reserves held by corporations capitalized at more than one billion yen increased to 285 trillion yen in 2013, up 13 trillion yen from the previous year.

Those companies have been adding to their surplus earnings by curbing seniority-based annual pay raises and replacing regular workers with non-regular workers, while simultaneously benefiting from corporate tax cuts and other preferential tax treatments.

The average annual income of workers increased to about 4.14 million yen in 2013, up 1.4% from a year earlier. In the meantime, prices went up by over 2% due to a weak yen and the sales tax hike implemented in April 2014. Workers’ real wages have been less than that of the same month in the previous year for 17 consecutive months.

The real GDP growth rate in the July-September quarter in 2014 decreased by 0.5% from the previous quarter, and is projected to contract by 1.9% on an annual basis. Declining real wages have been dealing a serious blow to the Japanese economy.

In the upcoming annual spring wage bargaining round, unions affiliated with the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) are set to press big businesses to use a portion of their huge internal reserves to raise workers’ wages by 20,000 yen a month.


Past related article:
> Corporations accelerate accumulation of internal reserves [June 8, 2014]