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)