Tokyo: Monthly salaries and bonuses for national public servants in Japan are likely to be raised for the second consecutive year in 2023, Jiji Press learned Tuesday.

The National Personnel Authority is expected to recommend hikes in the 2023 monthly pay and bonuses in August, informed sources said. In its recent survey, the government agency found that monthly salaries and bonuses at private companies will likely be higher than those of public servants amid rising prices and the country’s economic recovery from a slump blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authority compares the pay of national public servants with that of private-sector employees every year. If there is a gap, it advises the Diet, Japan’s parliament, and the cabinet to raise or lower the pay of public servants so that it matches that in the private sector.

To obtain basic data for this year’s recommendations, the authority conducted a survey on pay at about 11,900 private-sector business establishments with 50 or more employees. The survey covered monthly salaries for April and bonuses paid between August 2022 and this month.

The survey results, which are still being examined, suggest that the gap in the monthly pay between the private and public sectors is expected to widen from last year due to wage hikes for dealing with inflation and labor shortages. In 2022, the private-sector wages outpaced those of public servants by 0.23 pct, or 921 yen.

The authority will decide whether to revise the salary table, which sets public servant pay that corresponds to the regular monthly wage in the private sector, after examining the disparity in detail.

Meanwhile, private-sector bonuses are increasing although there are gaps between industries, according to the survey.

In its 2022 recommendation, the authority called for increasing monthly pay by 0.23 pct and paying bonuses equivalent to 4.4 months’ salary, up by 0.1 month, pointing out that salaries of public servants were lower than those of private sector employees.

According to the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, wage increases agreed in this year’s “shunto” labor-management negotiations, including regular pay hikes, averaged 3.58 pct, up from 2.07 pct in the preceding year.

The average winter bonus in 2022 was equivalent to 2.33 months’ pay, up from 2.21 months a year before, and the average summer bonus in 2023 was 2.34 months’ pay, up from 2.33 months.

JIJI Press