Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is counting on companies to raise wages to accelerate wealth redistribution, the centerpiece of his push for a new form of capitalism. Companies will need to factor in a recovery in their earnings from the COVID-19 pandemic but also heftier energy and material costs and the unknown impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant when annual labor-management wage negotiations begin in the spring of 2022. Wage growth is critical for consumers to step up spending and rejuvenate the world's third-largest economy, analysts say. Higher consumption should make companie...
