When Costco Wholesale opened its warehouse in a rural Japanese town not far from Tokyo last year offering hundreds of jobs at eye-popping pay, a nearby noodle shop chain took a drastic step: It hiked hourly wages by a third.
It was an almost unthinkable decision for Yamada-udon, which sells ¥390 ($2.48) bowls of noodles and for which the slightest rise in cost requires acrobatic scrambling to stay in business.
"For us, even a one or two yen rise in raw materials costs is tough, so to increase hourly pay by even ¥10 is extremely challenging as we need to generate far more sales," said marketing director Takehiro Ehashi.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.