Japan Press Weekly

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2012 June 27 - July 3 [LABOR]

Labor ministry council starts discussion on minimum wage hike

The Labor Ministry’s Central Council on the Minimum Wage on June 26 started deliberation on its annual recommendation for an increase in regional minimum hourly wages.

Members of unions affiliated with the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) on the same day carried out a street action in front of the building in Tokyo where the council held the meeting, calling for the minimum wage to be raised to at least 1,000 yen an hour.

In 2010, the government, the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), and the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) concluded an agreement to increase the average of regional minimum hourly wages to 1,000 yen by 2020.

Following the central council’s announcement of its recommendation in late July, prefectural councils on the minimum wage will set their own minimum wage standard in their prefectures.

The average minimum wage is 737 yen per hour at present, less than 10 yen of increase from the previous year for the first time in the past 5 years. This was because employers refused to agree on a wage hike, using the 3.11 disaster damage as an excuse.

However, with concerns over depressed regional economies, many prefectural councils increased their minimum wage at a higher rate than the central council’s recommendation.