Japan Press Weekly

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2010 June 23 - 29 [FINANCE]

Top 20 firms increase their internal reserves by 1.5 trillion yen

Akahata on June 25 calculates that these companies increased their earned surplus by approximately 1.53 trillion yen from 52.25 trillion yen in March 2009.

NTT increased its accumulated income by 340 billion yen to 5.4 trillion yen, Mitsubishi Corporation by 219 billion yen to 2.75 trillion yen, Honda Motor by 207 billion yen to 5.35 trillion yen, Canon Inc by 35 billion yen to three trillion yen, and Nissan Motor by 41 billion yen to 2.46 trillion yen. The largest earner was again Toyota Motor boosting its internal reserves by 37 billion yen to 11.57 trillion yen.

The increased portion of the top twenty firms amounts to a yearly salary of five million yen for about 300,000 workers, meaning that just a portion of their retained earnings can create many more jobs.

Internal reserves held by large corporations have ballooned as a result of such practices as replacing regular workers with contingent workers, cutting back on the workforce, reducing workers’ wages, and imposing lower unit prices paid to their subcontractors.

At Toyota Motor Corporation alone, its plants and equipment assets, the so-called tangible fixed assets, account for only 13 percent of its total assets of 10.35 trillion yen. The large part of its combined assets consists of financial assets, indicating that Toyota will remain strong even if it uses just a portion of its amassed profits to offer regular positions to contingent workers and increase workers’ wages.
- Akahata, June 25, 2010