Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called for higher wages to
offset rising living costs, stepping up his call as a weak yen
currency and higher commodities prices have driven up import
costs, sending inflation to its highest in four decades.
While Japan's top firms concluded the talks on Wednesday,
wage negotiations will get into full swing at small and medium
enterprises from April to June.
Rengo, also known as the largest Japanese Trade Union
Confederation, will update the pay negotiation results in
several stages before compiling the final results in summer.
Japanese salaries have been virtually unchanged since the
late 1990s and are now well behind the average for the OECD
grouping of rich countries.
While Japan's biggest corporations - including Toyota Motor
Corp and Hitachi Ltd - have agreed to the
requested increases from unions, the outlook looks less positive
for workers at smaller companies - which make up almost 70% of
Japan's workforce.
Those businesses have often struggled to pass on rising
costs to their customers. It's unclear whether the rising wage
trend will be sustainable, let alone create the "virtuous cycle"
of stronger economic growth and 2% inflation long sought by
Japan's central bank.
($1 = 133.0700 yen)
(Reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Tetsushi Kajimoto, Editing by
Angus MacSwan and Frances Kerry)
