Abe calls for minimum wage hike to 1,000 yen

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his government wants to raise the minimum wage by 3 percent a year to achieve its GDP growth target. Abe made the comments on Tuesday at a meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. He said the minimum hourly wage should be raised to 1000 yen, or about 8 dollars. The current wage is 6.5 dollars. He said the raise is necessary to achieve the target of boosting Japan’s GDP to 600 trillion yen, or about 5 trillion dollars, by around 2020. Abe instructed his ministers to come up with measures that support small- and medium-sized companies to raise the pay of workers earning the minimum wage. Source: NHK Image: Dreamstime Share this:TweetEmail