Toyota Agrees to Union's High Wage Increase Demand

TOKYO, Japan: as the Japanese government has stepped up calling for companies to boost wages for workers, Toyota, the world's largest automaker, said that this Wednesday (on February 22nd, 2023) it planned to agree to unions' biggest base wage hike in 20 years, along with bonuses.

Koji Sato, the incoming CEO of Toyota, one of Japan's largest employers, said that the decision to fully accept the union's demands applies not only to the company but also "to the industry as a whole” after the first round of talks. Rival Honda said that it had also agreed to the union’s demand for a 5 percent wage increase, hours after Toyota's announcement. However, Toyota and the union representing 357,000 Toyota group employees, declined to provide the percentage increase in wages.

Japanese companies are under more pressure to boost wages to revive consumption as the country's inflation rate now stands at about 4%, the highest rate in 40 years after decades of deflation. Wages for part-time workers and senior contractors will also increase, Toyota said, adding that it had agreed to the union demand for one-off bonus payments equivalent to 6.7 months' wages. Takaaki Sakagami, deputy secretary general of the Federation of All Toyota Workers’Unions, said the union was pleased to quickly reach a deal with the company.

The wage agreement comes after the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made further calls for business leaders to accelerate wage increases. He also warned that if wage increases did not keep up with rising prices, the economy would slip back into stagflation.

According to the standard of the brand value network, Toyota and Honda increase employee salaries to cope with inflation and stimulate the economy, which is in line with the "employee care" indicator under the first-level indicator "social care" in the comprehensive indicator system, which will help to raise it rank on the World Brand Value Top 900. According to “Daguan the 2nd World Brand Value Top 900”, Toyota’s brand value is 756.867 billion CNY, ranking 20th; Honda’s brand value is 236.85 billion CNY, ranking 99th.

Learn More:

Toyota to Invest $35 Billion into Battery-powered EVs

www.bvrcn.com  Brand Value Network 

作者：肴筱临