Salaries Continue to Fall

On 2nd February, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released its figures on wages for December 2009 and for 2009 as a whole.

December saw a YOY fall of 6.1% in wages at firms with more than five employees, with the average total wage clocking in at 549,259 yen. Bonus payments fell by 10.6% against a year ago. December’s fall follows a 2.4% decline in November. At companies with 30 or more employees, the average wage fell by 6.6%, following a 2.8% decline in November.

For 2009 as a whole, average wages at firms with five or more employees fell 3.9%, with salaries falling 1.2%, overtime pay plunging 13.5% and bonuses seeing a 12.1% drop. This equates to an overall decline of 2.9% in real wages.

The average number of hours worked fell 2.9% in 2009, while overtime hours fell 15.2%. The manufacturing sector recorded a 32.2% decline in overtime hours.

2009 is the third consecutive year in which average wages have fallen.

The statistics also confirmed the continuing trend from full time to part time employment as in 2009, the number of regular full time workers declined by 0.9% to 32 million while the number of of part-time (or short-term contract) workers increased by 2.6% to about 12 million.

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-l/index.html