A survey by the Finance Ministry showed on Monday that about 70% of companies in Japan will raise pay scale in fiscal year 2024, per Japan Times.
Additional takeaways
“The proportion of companies planning to raise their pay scales stood at 70.7%, up by 6.3 percentage points from the previous year.”
“Companies at which pay-scale hikes and regular pay increases will total 5% or more came to 36.5%, nearly doubling from the previous year.”
“50.2% of small and medium-sized firms said that they had been unable to pass on rising labor costs in their product and service prices.”
“The survey also showed that about 40% of firms were struggling with labor shortages even after raising wages.”
Market reaction
At the time of press, the USD/JPY pair was down 0.03% on the day at 154.80.
Japanese Yen FAQs
The Japanese Yen (JPY) is one of the world’s most traded currencies. Its value is broadly determined by the performance of the Japanese economy, but more specifically by the Bank of Japan’s policy, the differential between Japanese and US bond yields, or risk sentiment among traders, among other factors.
One of the Bank of Japan’s mandates is currency control, so its moves are key for the Yen. The BoJ has directly intervened in currency markets sometimes, generally to lower the value of the Yen, although it refrains from doing it often due to political concerns of its main trading partners. The current BoJ ultra-loose monetary policy, based on massive stimulus to the economy, has caused the Yen to depreciate against its main currency peers. This process has exacerbated more recently due to an increasing policy divergence between the Bank of Japan and other main central banks, which have opted to increase interest rates sharply to fight decades-high levels of inflation.
The BoJ’s stance of sticking to ultra-loose monetary policy has led to a widening policy divergence with other central banks, particularly with the US Federal Reserve. This supports a widening of the differential between the 10-year US and Japanese bonds, which favors the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen.
The Japanese Yen is often seen as a safe-haven investment. This means that in times of market stress, investors are more likely to put their money in the Japanese currency due to its supposed reliability and stability. Turbulent times are likely to strengthen the Yen’s value against other currencies seen as more risky to invest in.
