Many Major Firms in Japan Fully Accept Pay Hike Demands

   Tokyo, March 15 (Jiji Press)--With this year's "shunto" spring wage negotiations in Japan reaching their climax, many major companies on Wednesday offered to fully meet pay hike demands from their labor unions, reflecting competition for skilled workers.
   This came despite many unions making ambitious pay-scale hike demands of levels unseen in recent years in response to historic price increases.
   Among major electronics makers, Hitachi Ltd. <6501>, Toshiba Corp. <6502>, Fujitsu Ltd. <6702>, NEC Corp. <6701>, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. <6503> and Panasonic Holdings Corp. <6752> each offered to fully accept the labor side's demand for a pay-scale hike of 7,000 yen per month.
   Labor unions of major electronics firms conventionally make uniform pay requests. This year, they set the minimum acceptable level of response from the company side at 5,000 yen, or more than triple the previous year's level of 1,500 yen.
   In the automobile sector, Toyota Motor Corp. <7203> and Honda Motor Co. <7267> fully accepted the labor side's pay hike demands in February, effectively wrapping up their shunto talks ahead of other major automakers.

(2023/03/15-16:27)

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