In wage negotiations held earlier this year, businesses had agreed to an average 1.78% wage hike, in response to expectations of a 4% pay hike.
Government data has shown that the country’s jobless rate fell to 2.7% in October, decreasing by 0.1 percentage point month-on-month.
The government is considering granting a tax break for companies which raise salaries of all employees, including new and non-regular workers.
A Japanese labour ministry survey has found that the prolonged pandemic is still dampening wage hikes for workers in affected sectors.
A recent government survey showed that slightly more than half of workers who have changed jobs have found more rewarding careers.
The package has been reported to include cash support for small companies, as well as pay raises for nurses and care workers.
To help non-regular workers affected by the pandemic, several hundred billion yen has been set aside to implement a job-transfer-support project.
Chairman of the Japan Business Federation also backed the call, encouraging profit-earning firms to increase workers’ wages.
Cash payouts worth 100,000 yen (US$884) each will be delivered to students, temporary workers and low-income households hit hardest by COVID-19.
The government had earlier urged businesses to help achieve its target of cutting commuters by 70% and to support telework as an alternative.
A governmental economic-policy panel has proposed a fresh stimulus package, including shoring up support for companies increasing employee salaries.
Keidanren aims to reduce the number of women who are forced to quit their jobs to care for their children or nursing care for their parents.
Tomoko Yoshino said that gender inequality is also interwoven into Japan’s tax and pension system, and is part of a wider problem on workers’ rights.
Officials are concerned that small and medium-sized firms in the country will grow to be overly depend on the subsidies.
On October 1, the government lifted the country’s state of emergency amid a sharp drop in new COVID-19 cases, prompting businesses to hire staff.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had vowed earlier to draw up an economic package worth "tens of trillions of yen" to revive the economy.
Although wages levels have been increasing, workers are still making less than they used to as compared to before the pandemic hit.
Besides prioritising wage raises, the prime minister also said that he plans on a capital gains taxes discussion sometime in the future.
Over the next 12 months, 28% of companies expect to increase the number of employees as businesses recover from the pandemic.
The Japan Federation of Employers' Associations says taking on secondary employment can result in a more productive workforce.
Haruhiko Kuroda emphasised the need to create a virtuous cycle in which higher wages give households more purchasing power.
The country’s job availability fell for the first time in four months in August as the government expanded the state of emergency over more regions.
The roles offered typically involve short hours, and include tasks like weeding and cleaning that bring in an average monthly pay of less than ¥40,000.
The implementation rate of remote work in large companies shows a trend of being about twice that of SMEs during the pandemic.
About 9.8% of companies intends to hire more regular staff, while 3.0% will cut down on such hires when the country’s minimum wage is raised.
Regulators met with Chinese tech giants to discuss efforts to protect the basic rights of gig workers, following new government guidelines.
Japan's health ministry has found that clusters at workplaces were due to insufficient anti-COVID measures.
The rise reflected an increase in non-regular pay, which declined last year due to a fall in overtime working hours amid the pandemic.
A survey by the Japan Business Federation took into account the agreed bonuses of 159 Tokyo-listed firms with over 500 employees.
Some 97.2% of the male national public servants whose children were born between July 2020 and March 2021 took paternity leave for at least a month.