Japanese companies agreed to raise wages by an average 5.10 percent in this year's spring wage talks, offering a more than 5 percent increase for the first time in 33 years amid salary growth failing to keep pace with inflation, the country's largest labor union said Wednesday.
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, also known as Rengo, said its final tally of the results of pay negotiations from over 5,000 member unions found the average monthly wage hike stood at 15,281 yen ($94). The labor union had demanded an increase of 5 percent or more.
The figures compare with an average pay rise of 3.58 percent, or 10,560 yen, agreed in last year's negotiations. The number topped 3 percent for the first time in 29 years then.
This year's results come as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has repeatedly called on corporate management for pay rises that beat inflation.
The latest government data showed Japan's real wages fell for the 25th straight month in April, the longest since comparable data became available in 1991, with wage growth falling behind price increases.
Japan saw its core consumer prices rose 3.1 percent last year, the sharpest rise in 41 years.
Among major Japanese companies, offers by Toyota Motor Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. fully met their unions' demands while Nippon Steel Corp. agreed to pay more than it was asked for.
Small and medium-sized enterprises saw a 4.45 percent rise on average, or 11,358 yen, according to the final tally.
Leaders from Rengo and the Japan Business Federation, the country's biggest business lobby, had called on big corporations to allow smaller firms to pass increased costs onto them to achieve a positive cycle of wage hikes and price increases, a view also backed by Kishida.
