Future of Japan's Run of Good Fortune All Comes Down to Wages
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Japan’s ability to sustain the longest economic expansion since the mid-1990s and revive inflation may come down to whether wages go up.
With individual measures only showing part of the picture, investors need to monitor a dozen separate gauges to check the health of the labor market. The latest readings show it could hardly be easier to find a job, with unemployment the lowest in decades, and robust pay gains for part-timers. Salaries are rising for full-time workers, but ever so slowly, and inflation is stripping away much of the benefit. Productivity is short of what employers need.