Long hair and thick eyebrows unlikely in Japan

However, a weaker yen, while helping export-oriented companies, has reduced spending power at home because it has made imports more expensive. Official data show that Japanese household spending in 2014 declined at its fastest pace in eight years, underscoring how badly clobbered the average person felt. And due to the sales tax hike in April, inflation-adjusted wages fell 2.5 percent in 2014.

The government hopes that lower oil prices and annual pay rises, which are being negotiated between labor unions and corporations right now, will finally encourage Japanese to start spending again. Higher wages serve as one of a few engines to pull the nation's economy out of deflation.

Heeding the government, which has repeatedly called for higher pay to create a favorable economic cycle, Japan's blue-chip firms announced on Wednesday wage hikes that topped the increases last year.

The world's biggest automaker Toyota said it would raise employees' pay by an average of 4,000 yen ($33) a month - about 1.14 percent above current pay. Japan's second-largest automaker Nissan promised an even bigger average wage hike of 5,000 yen a month, and a bonus worth 5.7 months of employees' base wages. Major electronics firms, such as Panasonic and Toshiba, agreed to give a unified average wage rise of 3,000 yen a month, bigger than last year's 2,000 yen.

So far the wage settlements look "promising". But about 70 percent of Japanese workers are employed by small and medium-sized firms, and the thousands of smaller companies that make up a huge chunk of Japan's economy will offer much smaller wage rises or can't afford to increase them. Also, non-regular workers are not entitled to the annual wage raises.

And a recent poll by Reuters found that the big corporations' wage hikes will not enough to meet the higher cost of living.

So it seems unlikely the pay rises will be enough for Japanese women to wear long hair and thick eyebrows.

The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page