NOMURA Holdings will reward young employees at its flagship Japanese brokerage subsidiary with an average 16 per cent pay rise next fiscal year, far higher than local inflation, in a sign of intensifying competition to retain newer recruits.

The raise planned by Japan’s largest securities house for the year starting Apr 1 consists of base wage increases and regular seniority-based hikes, chief executive officer Kentaro Okuda told reporters on the sidelines of a gathering of industry leaders in Tokyo on Thursday (Jan 4).

It will impact staff who have clocked up three years or less with Nomura Securities.

Big companies in Japan are offering more generous pay packages as the return of inflation and calls for wage hikes from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration raise pressure on them to act. Daiwa Securities Group, one of Nomura’s main rivals at home, is weighing offering a 7 per cent or more pay increase for local employees next fiscal year.

But data last month showed Japan’s inflation cooled, with growth in consumer prices excluding fresh food items dipping to 2.5 per cent.

Nomura Securities’s planned base-salary boost for younger staff will represent the first lift since 2017, Okuda said.

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For those who will join the unit next fiscal year, the brokerage plans to pay a starting salary of 265,000 yen (S$2,451) a month, up 8.2 per cent from the previous year.

The turnover rate of employees under 30 years old stood at 15 per cent in the year ended March 2023 for Nomura’s Japan operations and its wholesale business in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania, according to filings. That compared with 15.7 per cent in the previous year and 9.7 per cent in the year before that.

The Nomura group as a whole brought in 2,277 new hires in Japan during the three years to March 2023, filings show. BLOOMBERG