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By Anton Bridge and Miho Uranaka
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Daiwa Securities is aiming to raise wages by at least 5%, its chief executive officer said, a faster rate than many Japanese firms expect as the country's shrinking labour pool intensifies competition for talent.
Daiwa is discussing a pay raise of at least 5% for the financial year beginning in April 2025, CEO Akihiko Ogino told Reuters, after hikes of 5%, 4% and 7% in the three years prior.
"In order to secure quality talent, we have to raise wages above inflation," Ogino said. "Every company has a shortage of workers."
Daiwa is also considering increasing the starting monthly base wage - not including bonuses - for career-track employees to 300,000 yen ($1,920) from 290,000 yen, subject to negotiations between employees and management.
In April this year, large Japanese firms agreed to raise pay by 5.20% on average, the biggest rise in 33 years, at the "shunto" spring wage negotiations.
But the expected pay raise at Daiwa for April 2025, Japan's second-largest brokerage and investment bank, would likely exceed that of most other firms - only 9% of firms surveyed by Reuters in October said an increase between 5% and 7% was possible in the next financial year.
Daiwa has also increased its intake of mid-career hires in the past two years. Ogino expects total experienced hires to hit 250 for the year ending in March 2025, up from 161 in the previous financial year and 147 the year before that.
Policymakers have said that decades of slow wage growth in Japan has impeded growth in domestic demand and of the overall economy. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda has made sustainable wage increases a core criterion for future interest rate hikes.
($1 = 156.3500 yen)
(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Nicholas Yong)