January 2023
Corporate awareness survey on trends in wages in FY 2023
Although 56% expect to raise wages, small and medium-sized companies find themselves in a bind
— High commodity prices have companies scrambling to find and keep workers —
— Total HR expenses up an average of 3.99% —
Introduction
The government is promoting an integrated reform with the 3 main tasks of raising wages, facilitating labor mobility, and investing in people. In particular, corporations are being called upon to cooperate in raising employee wages because of the recent jump in commodity prices, and the trend toward improvement in wages is attracting a lot of attention.
Teikoku Data Bank has conducted a survey on corporate awareness of trends in wages in 2023. This survey was conducted along with TDB’s January 2023 survey on economic trends.
*The survey period was from January 18 to January 31, 2023. The number of companies surveyed was 27,362, and the number submitting valid responses was 11,719 (42.8%). Surveys on wages have been conducted once a year since January 2006, and this was the 18th such survey.
*Data on this survey are posted on the TDB Economic Online (https: www.tdb-di.com).
Primary points of survey results(summary)
- 1 In FY 2023, 56.5% of companies expect wages to increase. Base pay increases will be the largest ever
At 56.5%, the percentage of companies expecting wages to improve in FY 2023 increased for the second straight year. This is a historically high level on a par with expectations for FY 2018 (January 2018 survey). On the other hand, 17.3% of companies said “No” to wage improvement (down 2.2 points year-on-year). The specific content of the wage improvements was “base pay increase” in 49.1% of cases and “bonus (one-time payment)” in 27.1%. The percentage expecting “base pay increases” exceeded last year’s 46.4% and set a new record high for the second straight year. - 2 Reason for wage increases is rapid rise in “price trends”. Over 70% also cite “supporting employees’ livelihood”
Among companies that said “Yes” to improving wages, the most common reason was “to secure and hold on to labor power” (71.9%), followed by “to support the livelihood of employees” (70.1%). “Price trends” increased sharply from 21.8% last year to 57.5%. Companies that said “No” to improving wages most commonly cited “company’s stagnant business performance” (62.2%, same as last year). It is possible that increases in commodity prices and delays in price pass-through are robbing companies of the reserve energy to improve wages, and they even face the risk of losing workers if they fail to raise wages. - 3 Although total personnel expenses are expected to increase an average of 3.99%, employee salaries are expected to rise an average of 2.10%
The percentage of companies expecting their total personnel expenses to “increase” in 2023 is 69.6%, up 2.5 points from the forecast for FY 2022. The rate of increase in total personnel costs is expected to be an average of 3.99% higher than last year. This includes average increases of 2.10% in employee salaries and 5.62% in bonuses, and it is estimated that welfare expenses, including various allowances, will also increase an average of 3.55% - 4 For non-fulltime employees, 25.9% of companies said “Yes” to wage increases
In FY 2023, 25.9% of companies said “Yes” to wage increases for non-fulltime employees, and one in four expected to raise the wages of non-fulltime employees. By comparison, 31.3% said “No” and 42.8% indicated that they “Do not know” whether they would improve wages for non-fulltime employees.