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The story
A ranking of industries with the highest share of workers earning over ¥8 million a year, based on the FY2025 Survey on Private Sector Salary Conditions, is making waves online. The top spot goes to the electricity, gas, heat supply, and water industry at 47.2%, followed by finance and insurance at 31.7%. Meanwhile, the lowest-ranked industry comes in at just 2.8%, highlighting a huge gap between sectors. Reactions on the thread were split depending on where people stood: some pointed out that “¥8 million today, with inflation, is only worth about what ¥5 million was before COVID,” others cited data showing civil servants’ salaries overtake private-sector pay from their 40s onward, and still others bragged about their income by naming specific industries, drawing a mix of envy and skepticism.
The industry with the highest proportion of high earners making over ¥8 million a year is “electricity, gas, heat supply, and water utilities.” Among its 181,000 salaried workers, the share earning over ¥8 million reaches 47.2% — meaning nearly half fall into the high-income bracket (related article: “[Ranking] The Share of Workers Earning Over ‘¥8 Million’ and ‘¥10 Million’ by Industry — Including Average Salaries by Sector 〈FY2025 Survey on Private Sector Salary Conditions〉”).
The electricity/gas industry also posted a 29.9% share of workers earning over ¥10 million a year. The high profitability that comes with supporting critical infrastructure underpins this high-level pay structure.
Ranked second is “finance and insurance.” Among its 1,295,000 salaried workers, 31.7% earn over ¥8 million a year. The share earning over ¥10 million is also high at 20.0% — meaning one in five workers reaches that milestone. The average salary here is ¥7.26 million.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Re: #9
Seriously, this.
I'm up to ¥7.8 million now but life was way easier 5 years ago
Inflation, every single thread (here we go again)
Even I'm consistently clearing ¥8 million now
Just a few years back, even with one-off income like relocation allowances thrown in, I was still under ¥8 million
Re: #9
Re: #29
Company employees: earning ¥8M+ Civil servants: earning ¥8M+
20s: under 1% 0%
30s: 4% 3%
40s: 12% 15%
50s: 22% 32%
Fake elite school, fake high income, more like
Even ¥20 million gets treated like trash here, so the "average" must be like ¥30 million then?
Agriculture/forestry/fisheries and medical ranking low is probably because this only counts "salaried employees"
Farmers and private-practice doctors are self-employed, so they're excluded
"Medical" here probably means stuff like nursing care
Doctors fall under licensed professions, different category
Just say "finance and consulting" outright lol
74%
Probably a lot of those people traveled back when the yen was strong
Now that the weak yen has everyone thrilled, it's domestic trips instead
Even I've been abroad, thanks to a company trip and my honeymoon…
Maybe the people who've never gone abroad were just loners who never got invited on a graduation trip
Temp agency factory work is brutal
Every job comes with the treatment that suits it.
Right tool for the right job, I suppose.
Since lots of doctors pull in big money, that just shows how low nurses and welfare workers must actually be
Nurses are still okay, but caregiving work… yikes
I don't think that's true at all.
Look at reality — workplaces are overflowing with highly educated, high-earning people.
Spent 5 years in grad school and still low income 😢
I make just over ¥15.5 million — it's IT/telecom
What's the point of saying things like that?
Knowing it doesn't mean you can actually get a job in that industry.
Hotels are basically yield-generating investment products, you know
The owner and the operator are separate entities
and since the operator leases at a premium while still needing to turn a profit,
they've got no choice but to cut costs wherever they can
Between a foreign luxury hotel charging over ¥100,000 a night and a cheap business hotel,
the pay for part-timers and non-regular staff is basically the same
Even budget hotels require English at the front desk, and Japanese people who can actually speak it well go for higher-paying jobs instead — so hotels end up relying on foreign staff
Hotel employees get paid poorly
because the job has no productivity (in the economic sense)
People still take the job anyway, probably because they want to be of service to the wealthy.
We should be grateful for that.
People like that shouldn't get welfare either
I'm from the same lost generation, but I worked a brutal job and scrimped for retirement the whole way and saved up ¥3,000
Go ahead and cry it out
I'm exempt from national pension payments 😢
Guess I've got no choice but to look elsewhere. Kind of hoping the company just goes under honestly
I'm on logistics night shift and take home about ¥230,000
For a day shift in Kanagawa, that sounds about right
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This ranking is drawn from the National Tax Agency’s “Survey on Private Sector Salary Conditions,” using figures limited to salaried employees who went through year-end tax adjustment — it excludes self-employed people such as farmers and private-practice doctors. That’s why the low rankings for agriculture/forestry/fisheries and medical/welfare don’t directly reflect poor treatment across those entire industries. Meanwhile, the high rankings for electricity/gas and finance/insurance largely come down to industry structure: these sectors are dominated by large companies with limited competition due to infrastructure control and licensing requirements, which allows for stable bonus and base-salary structures. The recurring claim in the thread that “¥8 million no longer makes you a high earner” reflects the price increases since around 2020, and holds up as a fair point that nominal annual income alone doesn’t capture actual living standards.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Latest 2026] Ranking of Industries With the Most “High Earners Over ¥8 Million” — The Reality: #1 Is 47.2%, Dead Last Just 2.8%“.
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