Economy

Major Electronics Unions Demand 7,000-Yen Pay Scale Hike

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Kenichi Tanaka (right), executive officer and managing director of Hitachi, Ltd., receives a wage hike request from Miyuki Hanzawa, central executive committee head of Hitachi Ltd.’s union, at Hitachi, Ltd. headquarters in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on Thursday.

Jiji Press

16:47 JST, February 17, 2023

Tokyo (Jiji Press)—Major Japanese electronics makers’ labor unions sought a monthly pay scale hike of ¥7,000 Thursday, more than double their 2022 request, in the ongoing “shunto” annual wage negotiations.

The focus is whether the management will raise wages in accordance with price increases for daily necessities that reflect high materials prices and a weaker yen. Many employers will give their responses March 15.

On Thursday, Miyuki Hanzawa, central executive committee head of Hitachi Ltd.’s union, submitted a wage hike request to Executive Officer Kenichi Tanaka.

Ahead of this, Tanaka told reporters that Hitachi will consider raising salaries in light of the recent inflation and its wage hikes in the past years.

“We’ll engage in negotiations from a medium- to long-term perspective in a comprehensive way, rather than mechanically reflecting price increases in a single fiscal year,” he also said.

It is customary for labor unions of major electronics makers to demand the same size of wage hikes. The unions requested pay scale hikes for the 10th consecutive year this time.

In recent years, the management increasingly sees the need to accept wage rises in order not to lose global competition for human resources.

Last year, labor unions of major electronics makers demanded a monthly pay scale hike of ¥3,000.

Of the makers, Hitachi, NEC Corp. , Toshiba Corp. and Murata Manufacturing Co. fully accepted the demand, while Mitsubishi Electric Corp. , Fujitsu Ltd. and Panasonic Corp. agreed to a pay scale increase of ¥1,500.