TOKYO: More large Japanese companies are now increasing wages to attract workers and deal with chronic staff disadvantages, a monthly Reuters poll showed upon Thursday (Aug 18), a tentative indication Japan Inc might be slowly addressing spend that has been flat for many years.
Still, the Corporate Survey found that higher income are not yet the first choice tactic for businesses, with digitalisation seen as the most popular among the several measures firms say they are using to deal with the labour crisis.
Japanese companies have typically prevented boosting wages because decades of deflation made it difficult to pass on higher costs in order to consumers.
That may now be changing, because the double whammy better commodities prices and a weaker yen drive up residing costs, and highlight the strain on employees. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has also called on companies in order to walk wages .
“Overall we are dealing with labour shortages and we are struggling in order to lure part-timers from stores in particular. We have been responding by increasing wages but which limit, ” the particular manager of a wholesaler wrote in the study, on condition associated with anonymity.
The particular poll of 495 big non-financial firms, taken Aug 2 to 12, outlined what appeared to be an increasing willingness by businesses to increase wages.
The hiking of wages or starting salaries was selected by 44 per cent of respondents as one of the multiple tactics they were adopting.
That compared to just twenty five per cent of companies that said in a 2017 Corporate Survey which they would increase wages.
A full 59 per cent picked going digital and other procedures to save manpower as one of their tactics.
“The tide is certainly changing as work shortages have motivated more and more companies to boost wages albeit gradually, ” said Koya Miyamae, a senior economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.
“Now is just the start, as the population increasingly ages and dwindles, the momentum to hike wages will certainly gather steam, inch he said.
A majority of companies, 54 per cent, said they will faced a labour crunch with the shortage most pronounced amongst non-manufacturers, 59 percent of which said they were squeezed for staffing requirementws.
“We have never been able to do anything” to secure workers, mentioned another manager in a wholesaler.
Businesses also called for a much better working environment, including year-round hiring and delaying retirement in order to encourage the elderly to operate until their later years.