Real wages down for 1st time in 2 years

February 7, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese real wages fell for the first time in two years in 2017, hurt by price growth, a government report said Wednesday.

The real wage index declined 0.2 percent from the previous year, according to the preliminary report by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

"Growth in wages has not caught up with price rises," said an official at the ministry's Employment, Wage and Labor Welfare Statistics Office.

In 2017, the average monthly pay to workers, including regular salaries, overtime and bonuses, rose 0.4 percent to 316,907 yen, up for the fourth straight year. Meanwhile, the consumer price index excluding imputed rents increased 0.6 percent.

Real wages, obtained by adjusting nominal wages for inflation, are a measure of the purchasing power of workers.

In 2016, the real wage index grew for the first time in five years. Last year's downturn resulted from price increases that reflected higher electricity rates and gasoline prices.

Of the total pay, regular wages, or base pay, rose 0.4 percent to 241,228 yen, bonuses and other types of special pay increased 0.4 percent to 56,114 yen, and unscheduled wages, chiefly overtime, grew 0.4 percent to 19,565 yen.

Full-time employees saw their overall monthly pay advance 0.4 percent to 414,001 yen and part-time workers 0.7 percent to 98,353 yen. Hourly wages of part-timers jumped 2.4 percent to 1,110 yen, on the back of labor shortages.

In December, the real wage index dropped 0.5 percent, the first fall in two months. Although nominal pay grew 0.7 pct to 551,222 yen, the CPI excluding imputed rents rose 1.3 percent mainly on surging vegetable prices. Jiji Press