Most of Japan’s 4 million public servants received their summer bonuses Friday, but some were asked to voluntarily give up half to take responsibility for the massive pension bookkeeping blunder at the Social Insurance Agency that dates back to the mid-1990s but was only revealed recently.
The average payment to central government employees in nonmanagerial administrative jobs was about 624,800 yen for a 34.7-year-old employee, up 900 yen from last year.
The average local government employee bonus is about 597,500 yen for a 36.5-year-old employee, up 100 yen.
After receiving severe criticism for the record-keeping fiasco, SIA chief Kiyoshi Murase said he was giving up his entire 2.7 million yen summer bonus.
Murase also urged about 17,000 employees of the agency to voluntarily give up 5 percent to 50 percent of their summer bonuses to the state coffers, a call likely to meet little resistance from the 12,000-member national union of social insurance workers.