Japanese employers will fail in the next fiscal year to heed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s goal of wage increases that outpace inflation, highlighting risks that the nation’s recovery will stall, surveys of economists show.
Labor cash earnings, the benchmark for wages, will increase 0.6 percent in the year starting April 1, according to the median forecast in a poll of 16 economists by Bloomberg News. Consumer prices will climb five times faster, increasing 3 percent, as Japan raises a sales tax for the first time since 1997, a separate Bloomberg survey shows.
The squeeze on consumers from higher prices risks undermining public support for Abenomics and dragging on retail spending, unless Abe can convince companies to boost wages to cushion the blow. At stake is sustaining a recovery in the world’s third-biggest economy, set to expand this year at the fastest pace since 2010 as Abe tries to drive an exit from 15 years of deflation.
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Mingze Wu
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