This is an AI translated post.
Corporate Views on Wage Increases and Government Support Policies for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
- Writing language: Korean
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Base country: Japan
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- Economy
0000-00-00 00:00:00
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Summarized by durumis AI
- Despite recent price increases leading to higher wage demands from workers, a survey found that only 9.2% of company executives considered a wage increase of 5% or more possible, while 44% chose to freeze or cut wages.
- Difficulties in raising wages were attributed to declining profitability and the absence of future wage increase plans. Many suggested that cost reduction and increased sales through price increases were necessary to secure funds for wage increases.
- Management expressed concerns about the current level of profit margin, urging the government to strengthen support for SMEs and stabilize prices to improve real purchasing power.
Recently, due to the overall rise in prices, there have been growing calls for wage increases as workers' real wages have not risen. Therefore, a survey was conducted to gauge the willingness of corporate executives to raise wages.
The survey results showed that only 9.2% of executives said they could raise wages by 5% or more, and even including those who said they could raise wages to some extent but not 5%, only about one-third of the total responded. In contrast, about 44% said that they would freeze wages or even cut them. Reasons for the difficulty in raising wages included deteriorating profitability due to the inability to reflect rising prices in product prices and the absence of future wage increase plans.
Many respondents said that increasing costs through cost reductions and increasing sales through price increases were necessary to secure funds for wage increases. In particular, more than half of executives in some industries, such as mining, tourism, and accommodation, expressed their willingness to reduce costs.
Expanding tax benefits and financial support were expected to be the most effective government support policies for small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, various management challenges were raised, including labor shortages, employee aging, and difficulties in recruiting talented individuals, depending on the industry. More than half of the executives responded negatively to the government's income tax reduction policy.
Overall, many businesses said that the current profit margin of around 3% was insufficient and that government policies to strengthen support for small and medium-sized enterprises and improve real purchasing power through price stabilization are needed.
