While the Chinese were still worried that Americans would be in dire straits because of the general strike, American workers were looking at their pockets and smiling from ear to ear.
Wages are all rising in rich countries, and they are likely to continue to do so.
U.S. companies have budgeted for wage increases at a 20-year high, and Japanese unions have negotiated the highest wage increases in the past 30 years.
Germany has added 48 new technical jobs this year and is also preparing to give civil servants a 17 percent pay rise.
Once again, China has hit a new record number of people running into the system this year, even as their predecessors are losing their jobs.
Next year's growth targets are coming soon, and the other side of the ocean is also facing the most important personnel changes. But whether it is China or the United States, in the final analysis, whether the people have money in their wallets or not is the biggest politics.
Wages in Japan have risen dramatically.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced the results of the 2023 survey on wage increases in Japan: This year, the average monthly increase in basic wages in all industries in Japan is 9,437 yen, which is 3,903 yen more than last year, an increase of 32%。
Japan's big companies are poised to extend their biggest wage cut in the last three decades in 2024 in an effort to boost household spending and give the central bank a reason to reconsider monetary policy. ）
Don't underestimate 3That's a 2% increase, which is the highest in the last 24 years.
If it is converted into ** yuan, it is equivalent to an average monthly salary increase of 458 yuan for Japanese people in 2023, note that it is every month, which is equivalent to an average salary increase of 5496 yuan per person in the next 12 months of the year.
This winter, Japanese companies also issued an average of more than 800,000 yen (about 3.00 yuan.).90,000 yuan), an increase of 1 compared with 20225% for three consecutive years**.
It can be said that in the past two years, the Japanese have simply caught the high-speed train of salary increases and bonuses.
But that's not all.
In next year's crucial spring wage negotiations, Japan will usher in the third consecutive year of wage **. Wage increases are a great thing, and it could completely change the mindset of the Japanese people, and the economy will be able to take a solid step out of deflation.
For example, Suntory Holdings, a major beverage manufacturer, plans to offer employees an average monthly salary increase of 7% for the second consecutive year in 2024.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company plans to increase the average annual salary of about 10,000 employees by 7% from April next year, while electronics retailer Bic Camera plans to increase the annual salary of 4,600 full-time employees by up to 16%.
On November 2, Japan** decided at an interim cabinet meeting that a comprehensive economic response that included a wage increase and a domestic investment promotion program. Including the reduction of income tax and resident tax, the scale of the countermeasure will be about 17 trillion yen (about 810 billion yuan).
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office, saying that "in the summer of next year, we will create a situation in which income growth exceeds that of prices** through a combination of wage ** and income tax cuts."
Kishida said, "Before next year's spring labor talks, I will take the lead in pushing for a wage ** margin that exceeds this year." Kishida said, "We are at a critical juncture in whether we can get rid of deflation, and we will mobilize all policies to expand the disposable income of the people."
He really, I cried to death. Japan is a country with a debt of more than 300%!Moreover, Japan may have to make a rare exit from the negative interest rate policy next year, that is, no matter how much money it borrows, no matter how much interest it repays, it will not hesitate to bring the whole country to the brink of a debt stormWe must really give everyone the hope and confidence to see the salary.
Let's not talk about how the policy will evolve in the future, with clear income expectations, consumption can really be boosted.
In the wake of the pandemic, wages have soared in all developed countries.
Moreover, ** has played a significant role in this round of salary increasesThese include Japan's huge investment in economic recovery, the United States' support for union negotiations to raise wages, and Germany's 48 new occupations this year.
In October, the average U.S. worker was receiving at least $60,000 a year, a real increase of about 3 percent from the end of 2019. According to data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, since the beginning of 2020, the lowest quartile of earners have earned an average nominal salary of 5 per year**6%, significantly higher than the increase in the top quartile of incomes (3.).8%）。
The International Monetary Organization expects the U.S. deficit to reach $8 this year2%。
The UK has also seen real wage growth during the pandemic: inflation-adjusted wages are 15%。The UK has raised the minimum wage by 97%, with a further 9 percent planned for next year8%。
The Economist, citing data from Oxford Economics, said that basic wages in Anglo-Saxon countries are growing three times faster than in continental Europe. This may be due to consumer industries such as the United States and Canada, which are more reliant on labor, which in turn are the industries with the greatest shortages.
In the first half of this year, nominal wages in the eurozone were **45% and more than 10% of nominal wages in the rest of Europe**.
The Netherlands has seen an annual increase of 6% in negotiated wages this year. In Germany, 48 new occupations have been created so far this year** in order to expand employment, the vast majority of which require skilled rather than academic workers, with the construction and healthcare sectors experiencing the most severe job shortages.
The nominal salary of a German federal employee next year will be **169%, with the lowest wage earners seeing the largest increase. And Germany is the developed country with the shortest working hours, even less than those Nordic countries that lie down every day to get benefits!
And German steelworkers will seek to reduce their working week from 35 hours to 32 hours in upcoming negotiations, or eight hours a day, which would be equivalent to four working days.
Look at the work efficiency of other people's homes, the manufacturing industry has achieved the world's leading, the economy has climbed to the third place in the world, cough The whole Europe will tremble, what's wrong with giving civil servants a salary increase, who is in favor and who is against?
It is said that China will follow the "German model", and I don't know when vocational education and general education will be implemented to one to one, but I think everyone may think that China will raise salaries like Germany, so they will give up the postgraduate entrance examination and turn around to take the public examination.
The postgraduate entrance examination fever, which has been "heating up" for 8 consecutive years, has finally cooled down. The number of applicants for the 2024 graduate admissions examination decreased by 360,000 from the previous year (a decrease of about 7.).6%), corresponding to the 2024 national examination, an increase of 43530,000 people, an increase comparable to the decrease in the number of graduate school entrance examinations.
Three years after the pandemic, we found that the "safe haven" for postponing employment seems to be not so ideal, and under the pressure of current employment competition, more college students are pursuing the value of employment higher than that of graduate school entrance examinations.
As long as you have a bachelor's degree, you can apply for 88% of the positions in the national examination. Since the end of the graduate school entrance examination is also the establishment, it is better to get the preparation first.
Graduate school entrance examination is a trade-off between opportunity and costIt's not that graduate students can't afford to climb high, but it's more cost-effective to take the public examination.
This wage boom in rich countries is here to stay, as the three long-term forces shaping labor markets – demand, demographics, and digitalization – each shift favorably.
One is demand.
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, rich countries around the world** have eased fiscal spending. Although the pandemic has become a memorial memory this year, the deficits of many countries in Europe and the United States continue to be at levels common in the Great Depression or wartime.
Therefore, even if the central bank raises interest rates, the demand for labor remains high.
A shift to loose monetary conditions next year will stimulate more social spending, which will continue to increase demand for workers.
Second, due to demographic changes, demand has increased but labor has been restricted.
The inflection point came in 2015. As China's working-age population peaks (99.8 billion), the end of the long-standing global demographic dividend.
In rich countries, the growth rate of the predominantly working-age population is the slowest on record and is likely to begin to decline by the end of the decade. This has exacerbated the tightness of the labor market.
In fact, the number of the main working-age population has leveled off. A survey of 41 countries by manpowergroup, a human resources firm, found that 77% of companies are struggling to fill job openings, double the number in 2015.
Two-thirds of Polish industrial companies say that the shortage of workers is one of the main factors hindering their development. In Germany, public transport has been forced to reduce services due to a lack of drivers.
In South Korea, about 59% of seniors aged 55 to 79 are working, up from 53% a decade ago.
Third, the transition from the information revolution to artificial intelligence and digitalization has made the education premium smaller and smaller, and on the contrary, it has raised the wages of relatively low-end labor.
In 2015, the average salary of a worker with a bachelor's degree or higher in rich countries was two-thirds higher than the average salary of a high school graduate;Four years later, the gap had narrowed in half.
Artificial intelligence is likely to accelerate this catch-up trend. Early research suggests that AI can provide greater productivity gains for a relatively underperforming workforce, helping to catch up with the leaders.
When many people hear about the arrival of the era of artificial intelligence, their first reaction is a wave of salary cuts or job losses. But I'm sorry, but that's at least a year behind.
For example, a robot that is better at making mobile phones than humans will lead to cheaper phones, higher demand, and more production. That's fine, of course, but in turn, it means an increased demand for phone designers and people who write apps. Daron Acemoglu and co-authors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) studied data from the Netherlands from 2009 to 2020 and found that the use of robots actually raised the wages of workers who were less relevant.
The core point here is:Technological innovations such as AI have led to increased productivity.
A more productive economy is undoubtedly a richer economy, creating demand for goods and services that are less affected by AI. Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University say about half of the job growth between 1980 and 2010 came from newly created jobs.
This trend will continue and is likely to accelerate. Although AI will replace workers, new demands will be created around it, as well as other areas of the economy. The skills required for these new demands are not necessarily digital skills, but the ones that best complement AI. For example, a hospital may be looking for someone with a better attitude to care to work with AI.
Moreover, the above three factors will reinforce each other. As long as the macro policy continues to expand, demand will continue, and the demand for artificial intelligence will naturally increase, which will ultimately lead to an increase in productivity, alleviating or even offsetting the disadvantage of a declining labor force.
Fortunately, China has seen the problemReducing taxes and fees, easing credit, and increasing spending.
As long as more and more people see the increase in wages and a fairer social environment, we can do our part despite the flood of wage increases outside. I believe that China knows it.