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The story
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s Basic Survey on Wage Structure has revealed monthly salaries by job title: ¥635,800 for department managers (bucho-level), ¥529,200 for section managers (kacho-level), and ¥399,200 for team leaders (kakaricho-level). Meanwhile, a 5ch thread filled up with reports like “My company only pays about ¥380,000 at kacho-level” and “I’m kakaricho-level and only make ¥300,000 including overtime,” sparking discussion over the gap between the statistics and people’s lived experience. The conversation also touched on how pay varies wildly depending not just on title but on company size and industry.
(snip)
[Monthly Pay by Management Rank] Department manager: ¥635,800 · Section manager: ¥529,200 · Team leader: ¥399,200
Based on the overview of the Basic Survey on Wage Structure results, here’s a rundown of monthly pay and average age by position.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
My company's technically classified as a "large corporation," but at kacho (section manager) level I only make ¥380,000–420,000 a month, and raises are nothing to brag about either.
Honestly getting pessimistic about the future, so I'm looking at jobs that might pay more.
"Kacho-level" is a pretty vague category anyway.
You shouldn't judge by title alone — you need to weigh actual job duties, promotion prospects, pay, and benefits all together.
I'm somewhere between team leader and section manager, pulling in around ¥13 million a year.
Honestly, if that's all you're making, come work at my company instead.
TOEIC 700+ and a PMP certification required, though.
That's pretty low.
I'm just a "shunin" (junior supervisor) and I make ¥450,000.
Sounds like the kind of company civil servants use as their benchmark for comparison.
I'm kacho-level and that's about what I make too…
even though my responsibilities are more like a department manager's.
You sure about that story?
Feels like it'll fall apart the second someone pokes at it.
¥1.2 million a month?
That's over ¥20 million a year — there can't be more than a handful of JTCs like that, you'd practically be identifiable lol
You've got nothing left to lose, so go for it, you "muteki no hito" (an “invincible man” — 5ch slang for someone with nothing left to lose).
I'm also 48 with just a high school diploma, but I'm a section manager making ¥7.5 million a year.
You're probably just roleplaying that character on 5ch to mess with everyone, and in real life you're a normal salaryman making over ¥10 million a year, right?
Only the deadweight will stick around.
Unless you pay the competent 5x or 10x what you pay the incompetent, your company ends up with zero competitiveness.
Competitiveness and widening inequality always seem to come as a package deal.
Though it's true poor countries don't really have another option.
The problem is paying the incompetent anything at all, even a little.
We need to shift to charging them a “public nuisance fee” instead.
at some companies it's normal to have multiple department managers in one department.
Like five “deputy” department managers plus one actual department manager.
From a subcontractor's perspective,
it starts to feel like “are you squeezing us just to fund their salaries?”
Hard to just shrug and accept that's how the world works.
Not sure why you're singling out subcontractors specifically,
but if anything I'd think subcontractors wouldn't care.
There's no point in it for them.
Someone working at a small contracting firm who still thinks that way
isn't evaluating themselves accurately.
That's exactly why they can't land a job at a big corporation.
Is this really the national average, or does bonus pay make up a big chunk of it?
If even department managers don't clear “ichi-hon” (¥10 million/year, common salaryman slang), there's no dream in that, and young people won't bother aiming for promotion.
Senior department managers who are effectively part of management
do qualify as “managerial supervisors,” so they don't get overtime pay,
but ordinary department and section managers do get overtime.
No, they don't. Only the late-night overtime premium gets paid.
Really?
I figured they just got a position allowance and no overtime pay at all.
No way a company can pay a fresh grad ¥5–6 million right off the bat.
Can't pay that to a first-year, but by year two it's pretty normal to hit ¥6 million including overtime.
Unlike year one, you get the full summer bonus, and you can rack up overtime for all 12 months.
Most companies barely have overtime these days.
Last time I did more than 30 hours of overtime was six years ago.
At a two-shift factory, hitting 50 hours is easy.
Depends on the department.
Even now, in the age of “work-style reform,” busy departments are still busy.
I sometimes rack up close to the union-agreed cap of 45 hours of overtime, and when I do, my gross pay hits around ¥700,000.
Though take-home is under ¥450,000.
Legally speaking, that's not possible, so rest assured.
Plenty of companies still classify section managers and store managers as “managers in name only.”
“A red light isn't scary if everyone crosses together” — is that what you're saying?
It's illegal, you know.
Japanese law is basically made to be broken.
Sometimes you practically have to break it.
Fight back and you get “promoted” straight into the low-pay department designed to push you out the door.
Making ¥4 million a year puts you on the better side of things.
Compare ¥4 million outside Tokyo to ¥6 million inside Tokyo, and the ¥4 million outside Tokyo can actually buy you a higher standard of living.
Move into Tokyo and rent jumps 1.5–2x or more, food costs go up 1.5x too.
I feel the same way, like, “oh, I guess I'm above average after all.”
I'm single so money's not an issue at all for me,
but I do think it'd be rough if I had kids on this income.
As usual, people online seem to believe pay differs a lot between the city and the countryside, but at big corporations, pay doesn't really change much by location.
Starting from the assumption that “of course it's cheaper because it's rural” is just off base.
Not the same person as 180, but at big corporations, isn't the salary paid out from wherever the head office is located?
That should be reflected on the withholding tax certificate too.
I wonder how it works for people hired locally at a regional branch office, though.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Figures like ¥635,800 for department managers come from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s Basic Survey on Wage Structure, representing the national average monthly salary (including base pay and various allowances, but excluding bonuses) across all company sizes and industries. The thread’s disagreement centered on the gap between this average and people’s personal experience, touching on the treatment gap between large corporations and SMEs, the reality of “managers in name only” who are classified as managerial supervisors and therefore don’t receive overtime pay, and the fact that base pay doesn’t actually differ much between urban and rural areas. It’s worth remembering that an average is just a central figure smoothing out the whole picture — actual compensation varies widely depending on company size, industry, and whether overtime is paid.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “How Much Do Managers Make? Department Managers ¥635,800, Section Managers ¥529,200, Team Leaders ¥399,200.”
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