Toshio Taniguchi is one of about 10,000 workers at Tokyo-based Renesas Technology Corp. who accepted a pay cut last month to keep the company alive.
"It was tough to swallow," said Taniguchi, a 62 year-old worker at the company, Japan's biggest unlisted chip maker. "But most people are just thankful they still have jobs."
Japan, the country with the most flexible wage system in the developed world, is slashing pay rather than sacking people, easing the pain of what may be the country's worst recession since World War II. A long-standing tradition of lifetime employment gives companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Renesas little choice, even if millions of workers like Taniguchi have to make do with less.