Mid-sized brokerages in Japan are following the biggest domestic firms in raising their starting salaries for new graduates, as they struggle with staffing in a tight job market.

Big companies in Japan tend to offer jobs to students who are set to graduate in March, and pay most of them the same amount. Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, one of the biggest mid-sized securities companies, said it will raise the starting monthly pay to ¥300,000 ($2,030) in April 2026 from ¥265,000 now. Rival Okasan Securities has already boosted salaries to ¥300,000 in April from ¥250,000.

That puts the two’s starting salaries in line with their bigger domestic competitors Nomura and Daiwa Securities.

Medium-sized securities firms mostly generate revenue by having staff make sales directly to clients, rather than rely on online trading. Giving investment advice through asset management services is another business area in which many firms are trying to expand.

Those businesses require building trust with customers, and retaining talented salespeople is key to that. But companies have struggled as star staff are poached not only by major securities firms that offer better compensation but also from companies in other industries.

"We set the starting salary at the level of major companies to avoid being left behind by competitors,” said Tokai Tokyo’s general manager of the human resources planning department, Taito Kura. "Companies that can’t continuously improve their benefits won’t survive.”