Corporate executives and labor unions began this year's spring wage negotiations on Tuesday, with the focus on whether companies will move toward hikes amid economic uncertainties caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Masakazu Tokura, chairman of Japan's most powerful business lobby known as Keidanren, urged companies to "respond proactively in consideration of social expectations," siding with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's call for aggressive pay hikes by businesses.
"I believe it is extremely important for companies to fulfill their responsibility of working toward raising wages and improving working conditions by distributing their earnings and the outcome (of their performance)," Tokura, head of the Japan Business Federation, said at the opening of a management-labor union forum.