Bank of Japan governor gets 1.1% pay hike, below inflation

BANK of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda got a pay hike of 1.1 per cent this year, the biggest the central bank offered its governor in nine years but not enough to offset the pace of inflation that is currently running at nearly 3 per cent, BOJ data showed on Tuesday (Nov 28).

The increase is nearly triple the previous year’s 0.4 per cent hike and the biggest since a 1.3 per cent raise in 2014, the data showed.

As a result, Ueda would earn 35.5 million yen (S$319,251) in the current fiscal year ending in March 2024 with a monthly pay cheque of roughly 2.02 million yen, which is about 5.5 times the average monthly salary earned by Japanese permanent workers.

The modest pay rise comes despite an aggressive push by the government and Ueda himself for companies to offer bigger pay increases to cushion the blow to households from the rising cost of living, and keep inflation sustainably around the BOJ’s 2 per cent target.

Core consumer inflation hit 2.9 per cent in October, staying above the BOJ’s 2 per cent target for 19 consecutive months and pressuring companies to compensate employees with higher pay after barely raising wages for the past three decades.

Japanese firms raised monthly pay by a record 3.2 per cent on average this year, bigger than a 1.9 per cent increase last year, a government survey showed on Tuesday. REUTERS