Major brokerages are set to raise pay for newly hired college graduates this year as competition for talent intensifies, amid a rebound in retail business and a chronic labor shortage.
Daiwa Securities Group Inc. plans to increase base salaries for the 600 school leavers starting in April from the ¥245,000 ($2,300) a month their predecessors got a year ago, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. is also considering an increase, spokesman Koji Ichihashi said, without giving an amount. Mizuho Securities Co. said last May that it would boost the monthly amount to ¥245,000 to compete with Nomura Holdings Inc. and Daiwa. Nomura, by contrast, has no plans to raise graduate pay, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The increase at Daiwa will make its freshmen the highest paid among the nation's biggest brokerages, which are competing for staff to work mainly at their retail branches as individuals show a renewed appetite to trade securities. Japanese companies, which traditionally recruit graduates in the spring, are facing pressure to boost wages in the tightest job market in decades.