Major Japanese manufacturers including Hitachi Ltd. and Honda Motor Co. on Wednesday offered pay hikes following annual wage talks with labor unions as their earnings are recovering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The raises were more significant than last year, with Hitachi, Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp, in a rare move among electronics giants, all fully meeting their labor unions' demands to increase the base salary by an average 3,000 yen ($25) per month.

A woman writes down responses from major Japanese companies in annual wage negotiations on a white board in Tokyo on March 16, 2022. (Pool photo)(Kyodo)

The increases for fiscal 2022 were announced after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who has pledged to redistribute wealth, called for pay hikes of over 3 percent by companies that have seen their earnings pick up to pre-pandemic levels.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. said they will reward full-time workers with a 1,500 yen hike in monthly basic salary in the new fiscal year starting next month.

Toyota Motor Corp., which has a strong influence in setting the direction of the country's "shunto" negotiations every year, agreed earlier this month to fully meet the salary and bonus demands put forward by its labor union.

Honda said Wednesday it has fully responded to its labor union's request to raise its base salary by 3,000 yen per month.

In Japan, wage negotiations often involve labor unions calling for pay-scale hikes based on corporate performance, on top of fixed regular wage increases according to individual achievements and other factors such as the length of employment.

The negotiations between management and labor unions culminate in March.

Nippon Steel Corp., JFE Holdings Inc. and Kobe Steel Ltd. said their workers' base salaries will increase by an average 3,000 yen per month in fiscal 2022 and 2,000 yen in fiscal 2023.

The increases are the biggest since 1998, when the major steelmakers started to engage in negotiations for two years at a time. The respective unions had requested a hike of 3,500 yen for both years.