Top Japan business lobby to request pay increases that top inflation

Japan’s most influential business lobby plans to ask member companies to demonstrate their “social responsibility” by granting pay rises that outpace inflation during upcoming wage negotiations, its final policy draft showed Tuesday.

The guidelines by the Japan Business Federation, known as Keidanren, for corporate managers discussing pay deals with labor unions in annual “shunto” wage negotiations come as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has urged businesses to give above-inflation wage rises as part of his “new capitalism” growth and redistribution policy.

But it remains to be seen just how far ...