Japanese Monthly Wages at Record Low in 2013

The average monthly wage, including bonuses, came to 314,150 yen in 2013, a record low for the second straight year since the current survey method was introduced in 1990, the labor ministry said in a preliminary report Wednesday.

Overtime pay and bonuses grew on the back of an economic upturn, but low-paid part-timers accounted for a greater share of the overall workforce, preventing the average wage level from rising, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Part-timers accounted for a record 29.4 percent of the workforce, up 0.6 point from the previous year.

The average monthly wage of full-time workers turned up for the first time in two years, rising 0.7 percent to 404,743 yen, while that of part-timers fell for the first time in two years, coming to 96,630 yen, down 0.6 percent, the ministry said.

The nationwide survey was conducted on around 33,000 firms with five or more employees.

via Mainichi

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza