Toyota, Nissan and Honda have agreed to increase base wages in Japan – in Toyota’s case for the first time since 2008, as it heads for record profits.
An average Toyota workers’ union member will earn JPY2,700 yen (US$26) more in base pay per month, senior managing officer Naoki Miyazaki told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. The figure is 0.8% of last year’s average salary and below the JPY4,000 the union asked for, the report added.
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Bloomberg noted that, though some Japanese companies have made healthy profit forecasts, they are nonetheless braced for April’s sales tax increase, the first in 17 years. Prime minister Shinzo Abe has been pressing employers to increase pay for workers to help end more than 15 years of deflation.
“If the Japanese economy was more likely to continue to grow for another 12 months, we would see much more robust growth in wages,” Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors in Tokyo, told Bloomberg in a phone interview ahead of the Toyota settlement briefing.
Including the JPY7,300 average increase in pay that workers receive based on seniority or promotions, Toyota workers will get a 2.9% raise, on average, the automaker told Bloomberg.
However, Toyota’s union, which represents over 50,000 workers, was granted its request the average bonus rise to JPY2.44m, the equivalent of 6.8 months of salary and the highest in six years.
Nissan, Honda
Nissan Motor also agreed to its union’s request for a JPY3,500 increase in base wages and bonuses equivalent to 5.6 months of salary, spokesman Chris Keeffe told Bloomberg. Honda agreed to raise monthly base wages by JPY2,200 yen.
But Kyodo News reported yesterday Suzuki Motor wouldn’t raise base salaries in Japan.
Earlier report: Toyota workers expect bonus and pay rise
