A beat for the headline wage data

December Labor cash earnings: 1.8% y/y

  • expected 1.7%, prior 1.7%

Real cash earnings is where the real pic emerges, not so good, misses at 1.4% y/y

  • expected 1.7%, prior 0.8%

More:

Regular pay +0.9 percent in the year to December

  • from 1.3 percent increase in November
  • Regular pay accounts for the bulk of monthly wages

One-off special payments +2.7 percent

Overtime pay (an indication of the strength of business activity) - 1.0% December

  • down for the first time in three months

Yen barely changed (not unusual for Japanese data)