It's a winning “shunto”.
The traditional annual session of salary negotiations between unions and employers in Japan has resulted in an agreement on a salary increase, record for thirty years.
The average increase will be 3.8%, more than economists' estimates.
Wages have risen very little each year in Japan for more than two decades, the unions having long preferred to focus on job security rather than wage demands, especially since consumer prices were almost stagnant in the Archipelago.
But inflation has also woken up in Japan since last year, notably under the effect of soaring energy prices.
It reached 4.2% (excluding fresh products) in January, the highest level since 1981. This rise in prices and the expected wage catch-ups could lead the central bank to normalize its monetary policy, one of the few on the planet to be remained accommodating.
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The government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged Japanese companies to grant wage increases commensurate with the stakes, to minimize the impact of inflation on purchasing power.
Japanese consumers have also been penalized by the fall in the yen since last year.
The preliminary results of the "shunto" relate to large companies.
The question now is whether small and medium-sized enterprises, which employ 70% of the workforce, will follow suit.
They are generally less able than large groups to pass on the increase in their costs to their selling prices.