TOKYO, May 8 (Reuters) – Japan’s real wages rose 1% in March from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, in \u200ca third straight month of gains that bolster the case for the \u200cBank of Japan to raise interest rates at its next policy meeting in June.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The \u200bdata highlight solid growth in Japanese wages, as March’s spring wage negotiations resulted in hikes of above 5% for a third consecutive year.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The BOJ, which next reviews interest rates June 15-16, considers steady rises in wages and prices \u200cas a prerequisite for another \u2060hike. Nearly two-thirds of economists polled by Reuters expect the BOJ to raise its benchmark rate to 1.0% by \u2060end-June.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The inflation-adjusted pace of wages, a key measure of household purchasing power, eased from a revised 2% gain in February but exceeded January’s 0.7% uptick, which \u200bmarked \u200bthe first real pay rise in 13 \u200bmonths.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Average nominal wages, or \u200ctotal cash earnings, rose 2.7% to 317,254 yen ($2,029.52), after a revised 3.4% jump for February.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nominal pay growth outpaced the consumer inflation rate the ministry uses to calculate real wages, which was 1.6% in March, staying below the BOJ’s 2% target for a third consecutive month. Consumer inflation in \u200cJapan has been easing as government subsidies \u200boffset rising import costs from a weak \u200byen, as well as surging \u200boil prices due to the Iran war.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Workers’ base \u200csalaries, or regular pay, grew 3.2% \u200bin March, slowing from \u200ba revised 3.4% rise in the month prior. Base salary growth for full-time workers grew more than 3% for a third straight \u200bmonth.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Overtime pay also \u200crose 1.9%. Special payments, consisting mostly of one-time bonus payments, \u200bfell 1.5% after a revised 7.5% jump for February.($1 = 156.3200 yen)<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Satoshi SugiyamaEditing by Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO, May 8 (Reuters) – Japan’s real wages rose 1% in March from a year earlier, government data…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[1300,191,189,8,188,190,1312],"class_list":{"0":"post-19971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank-of-japan","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-economy-of-japan","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-japans-economy","13":"tag-japanese-economy","14":"tag-real-wages"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}