Monthly wages including overtime and bonuses slipped 0.6 percent from a year earlier to ¥264,456 after dropping 0.2 percent in January, the labor ministry said.
Reports over the past week indicate the resurgence in overseas demand that has bolstered corporate profits has been slow to filter through to households, exacerbating deflation. Firms are concentrating on cutting costs, leaving little leeway to increase pay.
Winter bonuses slumped a record 9.3 percent from a year earlier to ¥380,258, the lowest since the ministry started collecting the data in 1990, Wednesday's report shows. At the same time, gains in exports prompted manufacturers to increase overtime hours by 0.7 percent from a month earlier.
Household spending declined 0.5 percent in February, the government said Tuesday, the first drop in seven months, and a reduction in payrolls kept the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.9 percent. Industrial production also fell, snapping 11 straight month-on-month gains.
The economy will expand at an annualized 1 percent pace in the three months that ended Wednesday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed last month. That would follow the previous quarter's 3.8 percent growth, which was driven by exports and consumer outlays supported by government stimulus measures.
Some economists, including Yonosuke Iwata, predict wages will start to improve thanks to a recovery in corporate earnings. Firms are forecasting that profits will rise 32.3 percent in the year starting Thursday, compared with the 14.1 percent drop anticipated in the business year that just ended, a Finance Ministry survey shows.
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