Rising salaries a welcome sign for industrial world

Washington

BANK of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda is finally getting a pay raise - and so, too, are a growing number of workers throughout the industrial world.

Wages are beginning to climb in the US, Japan, the UK and Germany as tightening job markets force employers to pay workers more. That's good news for households already benefiting from a steep fall in oil prices.

The raises aren't big - Mr Kuroda, for example, is getting a 1.3 per cent bump - and labour has a long way to go to get back to where it was before the US recession hit at the end of 2007. Yet the increases are a welcome sign for policy makers that the world economy is on the mend and primed for potentially faster growth.

"It's a very desirable development," said Peter Hooper, chief economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York and a former Federal Reserve official. "It's what the central bankers want to…