Top companies in Japan have agreed to give their employees their largest wage hike in decades during their annual labour talks earlier this month, Reuters reported, following pressure from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to increase salaries amid rising inflation. Salaries of Japanese workers have remained virtually unchanged since the 1990s and the demand for increased wages has turned up in recent months amid a weakening yen and rising cost of living. Several large retailers have already implemented across the board wage hikes. Although an exact figure was not given at the ‘shunto’ (spring wage campaign) wage talks this year, analysts expect the boost to be around 3%, which would be the largest since 1997.