Wages

One 48-year-old man, who was once homeless but had begun working, died of what is thought to be heat stroke on July 26 at his un-air conditioned Tokyo apartment. On Aug. 15 a 76-year-old man in Saitama, north-west of Tokyo, died of heatstroke because he couldn’t afford the electricity to run his air conditioner.

“People receiving some form of social welfare, even though it’s not enough, do have case workers or others to follow up on them. But low-income earners trying to survive on their own don’t have that, and fall through the cracks of heat wave countermeasures,” says one expert.

On July 23, the third day of a savage Tokyo heat wave, a man stumbled back to the office of his cleaning company after finishing a job close to Ikebukuro Station. He was scheduled to work again the next day, but Reijiro Miyamoto, director of the company that had a cleaning contract with Toshima Ward, told him not to come in. Miyamoto thought the man ought to have the weekend off. However, the man did not return to work on Monday.

Behind this and other heat stroke deaths among low-income earners is the fact that there are many households living below the “minimum cost of living” set as the standard for welfare payments. Based on the 2007 National Livelihood Survey, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimated that there are some 1.08 million households receiving social assistance payments. However, the number of households living on incomes lower than those welfare payments had risen to a startling 5.97 million.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100821p2a00m0na024000c.html

Hourly minimum wages are set to create a society in which all people can earn a living if they work diligently. The Central Minimum Wages Council of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has decided on an average raise of 15 yen in minimum hourly wages set by prefectures.

In its manifesto for the Lower House election last year, the Democratic Party of Japan proposed a national minimum wage of 800 yen ($9.24) an hour.

The council’s discussions ran late because of a deep rift between labor and management. Labor representatives sought an early implementation of the 800-yen target while corporate representatives were concerned that added labor costs could affect the economy and worsen the performances of small and midsized companies.

Nevertheless, they agreed upon the largest raise because the significance of minimum wages has changed drastically.

The minimum wage is on par with the starting wages of young new employees living with their parents. The seniority-based pay scales were designed so that young regular employees would earn enough to support a family when they are in their 30s.

However, due to the economic downturn since the 1990s, the number of nonregular workers with few prospects of a pay raise has increased to about one-third of workers. Within this structure, low minimum wages can easily put people in “working poor” situations.

The current nationwide average minimum wage stands at 713 yen per hour. Even those who work full-time hours can earn only 1.5 million yen a year. Among workers with annual incomes of less than 2 million yen, nearly one in every five is a household head.

In 12 prefectures, minimum wages are lower than public welfare assistance. This topsy-turvy situation could deprive the people of the will to work.

European nations have been continuously increasing minimum wages, based on the principle that companies are responsible for guaranteeing their employees wages sufficient to maintain their livelihoods. Companies that can no longer do this must leave to make room for new businesses.

The U.S. minimum wage was one of the lowest among leading economies. In response to criticism about growing income gaps and poverty, the federal minimum wage was raised by 40 percent to $7.25 an hour during the three years through 2009.

To show the council’s will to raise the bottom level of minimum wages, its guidelines call for a considerable hike of 10 yen in areas, such as Aomori and Okinawa prefectures, where minimum wages are lower.

Even if the minimum wages are raised to 800 yen an hour, the annual income for those who work full-time hours would fall short of 2 million yen. With that level of income, workers would not be able to cover the costs of living in Japan, where they must pay for housing and child education.

The raising of minimum wages will not function effectively without the creation of a comprehensive “anti-poverty” framework. We must keep firmly in mind that the “raise is a beginning.”

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201008090144.html

A government advisory panel is expected to recommend Friday that a weighted-average hourly minimum wage in Japan be raised by 15 yen to 728 yen for fiscal 2010 that started in April, government sources said Thursday.

The increase would exceed 10 yen for fiscal 2009 and be the fourth consecutive double-digit increase. The government’s growth strategy, adopted in June, calls for raising the minimum hourly wage in each of the 47 Japanese prefectures to at least 800 yen as early as possible.

The recommendation by the Central Minimum Wages Council seeks to raise the minimum hourly wage by some 10 yen in 41 prefectures and by 13 to 30 yen in the other six prefectures where minimum wage income slips far below welfare benefits, the sources said.

The recommended increase stands at 30 yen in Tokyo and Kanagawa, at 15 yen in Kyoto, at 14 yen in Osaka and Saitama, and at 13 yen in Hokkaido.

If the recommendation is accepted, welfare benefits’ excess over minimum wage income will be eliminated in Aomori, Akita, Saitama and Chiba prefectures. Such excess will still exist in Hokkaido and Tokyo, and Miyagi, Kanagawa, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Hiroshima prefectures.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100805p2g00m0dm077000c.html

Japan’s wages rose for a fourth month as employers had staff work more hours instead of adding to payrolls, a trend that may sustain the recovery without reducing the economy’s reliance on exports to propel growth.

Monthly wages including overtime and bonuses increased 1.5 percent in June from a year earlier to 437,677 yen ($5,050), the Labor Ministry said today in Tokyo.

A gradual rebound in salaries will help support consumer spending in coming months, according to economist Yoshimasa Maruyama. That will reduce the damage from a lack of job gains after figures last week showed the unemployment rate rose to a seven-month high, driven by a lack of positions for young people.

“Recent increases in overtime pay reflect the economic recovery,” Maruyama, a senior economist at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo, said before today’s report. “But companies are holding off on meaningfully increasing personnel costs” until the economic outlook becomes clearer, he said.

Special pay, a category that includes bonuses, gained 3.3 percent to 173,851 yen, today’s report showed. Mid-year bonuses at large companies rose for the first time in three years, according to business lobby Keidanren.

While overtime hours climbed for a sixth month on a year- on-year basis, the figure for manufacturers dropped from a month earlier, reflecting a recent stalling of production. Factory output slumped 1.5 percent in June, the biggest decline in more than a year, the Trade Ministry said last week.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-02/wages-rise-for-fourth-month-on-overtime-as-japanese-employers-limit-hiring.html

Japan has at least three listed companies where a top executive earned more than 100 times the average annual salary for employees in the year ended March, according to their settlement accounts.

“I felt disheartened to hear that the president received about 900 million yen when many workers are wondering every day how to save on even 1,000 yen,” says one [Nissan] employee.

A female employee at Dai Nippon Printing said the president’s level of compensation “came as a shock because bonuses for employees have been falling nonstop.”

Salaries of company employees in Japan have been stagnating.

While executive compensation at large corporations capitalized at 1 billion yen or more increased 23 percent from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2007, the salaries of employees have more or less remained unchanged over the same period, according to Finance Ministry statistics.

The cash earnings for employees fell year on year for 21 consecutive months through February partly due to the global financial crisis, according to labor ministry figures.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007260410.html

Inagawa Motoko Office, one of the largest and oldest show business agencies catering to foreign performers in Japan, recently came under fire from some of its registered artists for not paying them in a timely manner for work they have done.

In recent interviews with The Japan Times, 10 people registered with IMO said those who do not ask the agency for money multiple times have no chance of getting paid, and there are many foreigners who have gone home unpaid.

All of the 10, five of whom asked not to be named because they don’t want to upset the agency, said they are registered with several other agencies but have no similar problems with them.

IMO is not violating any written contracts because the people it uses do not sign one that stipulates the timing of payment before each job, which range from ¥10,000 to ¥50,000 for a few hours of work or a full day.

Industry experts say there may be other agencies with similar delinquent payment practices, because many agencies are not well known. But the normal practice is to tell artists what they will earn in advance and to pay wages on time.

Louis Carlet of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union recommended that foreign artists unionize.

“If they unionize, they have collective bargaining power. They will have more strength,” he said, adding that even one person can join his union.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100629f2.html

The economy grew at its fastest pace in three quarters as an export surge prompted companies to increase capital spending even as the nation endures persistent deflation at home.

Gross domestic product rose 4.9 percent pace in the first three months of 2010 at an annual rate, less than forecast, a Cabinet Office report showed Thursday. So-called nominal GDP, which is unadjusted for price changes, increased 1.2 percent on a quarterly basis, the most in a decade.

The export-fueled rebound also started feeding into wages and the labor market. Earnings rose for the first time in 22 months in March and the ratio of job openings to applicants advanced for a third month.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100521n1.html

Monthly wages took their largest drop ever — 3.3 percent — in fiscal 2009 ended in March as the global financial crisis and recession took their toll, the labor ministry said Monday.

Wages came to ¥315,311 on average, down for a third consecutive year and the sharpest year-on-year drop since fiscal 1991, when the survey’s current statistical methods were adopted.

The drop emerged in the form of declining semiannual bonuses and overtime pay as companies struggled to cope with the weak economy, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

Bonuses and other nonbasic pay tumbled 10.8 percent to ¥53,046 per month, while nonscheduled remuneration, including overtime, slumped 7.9 percent to ¥16,987. Basic salaries fell 1.1 percent to ¥245,278.

Overtime hours came to an average of 9.4 hours per month in the reporting year, down 8.5 percent from a year earlier.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100518a3.html