Nomura Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said it will raise pay for about 3,700 employees at its domestic brokerage unit to attract and retain staff, and to support the economy.

Base pay at Nomura Securities Co. will climb an average 2.3 percent from April, said Kenji Yamashita, a spokesman. The increase is aimed at employees who are mainly in their 20s, he said.

Nomura and Daiwa Securities Group Inc. are among financial firms that have been reviewing compensation as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urges companies to help defeat deflation. Living costs have been rising following a sales tax increase last April and monetary easing designed to spur prices.

The workers at Japan's biggest brokerage will get ¥7,000 more pay on average each month, Yamashita said. The starting salary for graduates will increase to ¥232,300 from ¥210,000, Nomura said in a statement. It raised pay for 4,000 employees as part of a similar initiative last year.

Bank of Japan officials assess that average base wage gains of 1 percent are needed in the coming fiscal year to sustain the economy's emergence from two decades of stagnation, people familiar with central bank's discussions said last week. Wages rose 0.1 percent in November from a year earlier, while consumer prices climbed 2.7 percent, government figures show.