Japan's workers brought home less in real wages in fiscal 2023 for the second-straight year. Nominal pay was up, but not by enough to beat inflation.
A survey by the labor ministry shows an average monthly wage of 332,533 yen, or about 2,100 dollars, during the year to March. That's up 1.3 percent in yen terms from the previous fiscal period, marking an increase for the third-straight year.
But real wages per worker adjusted for inflation fell 2.2 percent.
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation says annual labor negotiations this spring led to an average wage hike of 5 percent as of this month.
That's a relatively large increase. The question now is whether rising commodity prices will eat away at any real gains in pay.