From our other sites
The story
Edenred Japan, which provides employee benefits services, surveyed 600 people — 300 corporate representatives who employ part-time workers and 300 people currently working part-time — and found that over 80% of companies that raised hourly wages said there’s a limit to competing for hires on pay alone. Among part-time workers themselves, many said that even with higher hourly wages, they still don’t feel any more financial breathing room. On a 5ch thread, opinions clashed over how real these raises actually feel: some argued that wage gains are simply being wiped out by rising prices, others said minimum wage hikes are squeezing small restaurants, and still more debated how work patterns are shifting now that the “1.06 million yen wall” has been abolished.
In recent years, against a backdrop of minimum wage hikes and labor shortages, the environment surrounding hiring and retaining part-time and temp workers has grown increasingly difficult.
Edenred Japan, which operates the “Ticket Restaurant” meal subsidy benefit service, recently conducted a survey titled “Survey on the Actual Treatment of Part-Time Workers” targeting a total of 600 people — 300 corporate representatives who employ part-timers and 300 people currently working part-time — and has released the results.
Over 80% of companies that raised hourly wages say competing on “hourly pay alone” has hit its limit
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
But then they just spend those freed-up hours messing around on their phones, so no extra free time either way.
That's not because they're off playing around — it's because their take-home pay would otherwise drop (crossing an income threshold).
Companies that cut temp workers right at the 3-year mark should be forced to pay 10 years' worth of severance, retroactive 20 years, to everyone they let go that way.
Now hourly wages are over ¥1000, but a burger combo runs ¥800+ and even a regular-size beef bowl is about ¥500 — when you think about it that way, things are actually worse now than during deflation.
Back during deflation, the cheapest shelf at BOOKOFF (secondhand bookstore chain) was ¥100 before tax, the magazine 'MC Axis' was ¥1,200, and Shogakukan's NEO picture-book encyclopedia was ¥2,000 before tax.
Now the cheapest BOOKOFF shelf runs ¥110–242 tax included, MC Axis is ¥2,200 tax included, and Shogakukan's NEO 'Ancient Creatures' volume has climbed to ¥2,860 tax included.
At my company the divorce rate is high — 30% are single mothers.
minimum wage hikes are really squeezing small restaurants.
Turning a profit while paying ¥1,300/hour is tough.
That's why bankruptcy numbers are rising.
Domestic-facing businesses are probably in for a rough stretch.
Then they should just close up shop.
Then just pay the insurance premiums yourself.
Can't — men in this country are hopelessly useless at housework and childcare.
This isn't only about married people —
singles can just go work full-time too.
inflation causes "cash to degrade."
Prices are so high in places like New York
that even people earning over ¥10 million a year
apparently have zero breathing room in their finances.
America runs on winner-take-all.
Half of all consumption comes from the wealthy, and everyone else just fights over the remaining 90%+ — of course it feels that way.
That's not really about prices — it's the weak yen.
The yen's real effective exchange rate has fallen to a third of what it was 20 years ago,
which makes American salaries and prices look absurdly high.
So now we have to run things with fewer people, and it's rough.
Revenue doesn't just magically rise to match, so of course labor costs can't keep climbing forever — that's exactly how you end up there…
and that's true for almost everything, not just food.
So when you buy 20 items at the supermarket, you're paying ¥2,000 more than before.
There's no way a hourly wage bump of a few dozen yen keeps up with that lol.
Not the sharpest take.
A ¥50/hour raise adds about ¥100,000 a year in income working full-time —
that's 50 of those ¥2,000 shopping gaps.
Depends how much you buy,
but for a single person that probably covers it reasonably well.
Minimum wage has risen over 50% in 20 years.
Policy has been tilting redistribution in workers' favor, so honestly, things aren't that bad.
If you go around smugly lecturing middle-aged part-time moms and student part-timers like that, people are going to hate you.
Students and housewives have their "main job" elsewhere, so they should just put effort into that instead.
Students should get qualifications or land jobs at higher-paying companies.
Housewives should support their husbands and kids in earning more.
And of course, negotiating your own pay
or switching to a better-paying part-time job yourself is the surest route too.
Sure, it sounds harsh.
There's never been an era where the mediocre majority got rich.
You have to become one of the resourceful minority.
If you don't put in the effort yourself, nothing changes.
You'll just get outpaced by people who do.
The poor stay poor.
Deflation was kinder to poor people.
An era of "if you don't like it, quit" makes working itself miserable.
And under deflation you can't even hit your nominal sales targets.
I used to think the old Watami-style boss mentality (the izakaya chain notorious for its brutal work culture) was just how things were.
please work, work, work, work, and work some more.
Well, it's simple enough — just work more.
This is a decent country where an hour of work can cover your food costs.
In developing countries where labor is paid rock-bottom wages and workers get used up,
no amount of working makes life any better.
I'm a part-timer, and when my hourly wage went up, they just cut my contracted hours a bit.
It's well-suited for small and mid-sized companies that can't afford their own cafeterias,
and it comes with tax advantages too.
Since smaller companies struggle to compete with big corporations on wages, the idea is for them to
boost employee satisfaction through benefits like this instead and compete that way.
I get the angle, thanks for explaining that part.
But what about raises for the part-timers this company itself presumably employs, lol?
Correction to Re: #182: the thread in Re: #1 is actually about the opinions of part-timers
cooking food at the partner restaurants affiliated with that Ticket Restaurant service, lol.
Isn't it about the opinions of the people working there?
You could push back and say the raises are too low, sure —
but the conclusion isn't "raise wages more."
It's more like "since wage hikes have their limits, how about we try something else instead?"
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Edenred Japan, which conducted the survey, operates the “Ticket Restaurant” service that provides employees with meal subsidies, and the survey’s underlying motive is to help small and mid-sized companies boost their hiring appeal through benefits beyond wages. The thread’s central debate was the gap between nominal wage growth and how it actually feels in daily life. While some pointed out that the minimum wage has risen more than 50% over the past 20 years, many others noted that the rising cost of everyday goods like groceries has simply canceled out those gains. The thread also buzzed about the abolition of the “1.06 million yen wall” — the income threshold tied to social insurance enrollment — starting in October 2026, which is prompting people to rethink how they work. The key takeaway, one that headline numbers alone don’t convey, is that you can’t really talk about what a pay raise feels like without also factoring in prices and changes to the social insurance system.
*This article was compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Even as hourly wages rise… Over 80% of part-timers say they still don’t feel any financial breathing room.”
Leave a Reply