Wage growth slows sharply in November

Pay rise: A worker cleans around frozen tuna in Tokyo. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida amplified calls for robust wage increases in recent speaking engagements. — AFP

Tokyo: Headline wage growth for Japanese workers slowed sharply in November, an unwelcome development for the Bank of Japan (BoJ) as it seeks evidence of a virtuous cycle linking pay hikes to price increases as a prerequisite for normalising monetary policy.

Nominal cash earnings for workers rose 0.2% from the previous year, decelerating sharply from a 1.5% increase in October, the Labour Ministry said yesterday. Economists had expected the pace to hold steady.