What is the outcome of the wages reform in recent Japan

1. What Has Changed: Overview It has been some ten years since the term “performance-based evaluation system” was introduced. Although we hear a great deal of praise and censure of this term, it has yet to be clearly defined even after so many years. In this paper, I will attempt to identify what has changed since the 1980s. The current wage reform can be summarized as follows: (1) the wage system has been diversified, (2) the diversification is a result of the accelerated involvement of wage system management in the business model of individual companies, and (3) in parallel to diversification, the core of the wage system has been reformed from the system of the 1980s. (1) Diversification of the wage system. Company B, a distribution and retail company, provides its all union-member employees with single rate pay. On top of that, employees receive “Individual Performance Pay” (linked to the index of the sales amount per person in relation to the average monthly sales per person) and “Shop Performance Pay” (ranked by the achievement rate of actual sales against the monthly target sales for the section). The “Individual Performance Pay” and “Shop Performance Pay” are calculated every three months, thus effecting a drastic change on employees’ salaries every three months. While this “performance pay” directly related to sales is applied only to those who work on the shop floor, a similar wage system is used for those who work in purchases, planning, human resources and