Companies' pretax profits have expanded by more than 80 percent during the economic upturn starting in February 2002, but wages per employee have declined slightly, an analysis by Kyodo News shows.

Pretax profits at firms in all industries except the financial and insurance sectors stood at 14.49 trillion yen in the April-June quarter, up 86.5 percent from the first quarter of 2002, when the economy started recovering, according to the analysis.

Meanwhile, the total amount of cash earnings per worker in the second quarter of this year fell 1.4 percent from January-March 2002, suggesting only companies have enjoyed the benefit of the economic recovery.