Many Major Japanese Firms Offer Higher Pay Increases

Tokyo, March 16 (Jiji Press)--Many major Japanese automakers and electronics firms fully accepted labor unions' pay demands while major steelmakers and heavy machinery companies revived a pay scale increase as this year's "shunto" labor-management wage talks reached their climax on Wednesday.

Those companies offered bigger wage increases than they did in last year's talks as they recovered from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic despite an uncertain outlook on the Japanese economy due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The focus will now shift to whether smaller companies will be able to raise wages.

Nissan Motor Co. <7201> fully accepted the labor union's demands for a monthly wage hike of 8,000 yen. On March 9, Toyota Motor Corp. <7203> already agreed to fully meet the demands of its labor union.

In a rare move for electronics makers, Hitachi Ltd. <6501>, Toshiba Corp. <6502> and NEC Corp. <6701> fully accepted their labor unions' demands, agreeing to a pay scale increase of 3,000 yen.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]