With the spring hiring season in Japan starting, close to 60% are considering salary raises for employees, according to research from employment firm Mynavi Corp.

Mynavi’s 2024 New Graduate Hiring Plan Survey took responses from 2,036 companies to understand the attitudes toward new graduate recruitment and trends in overall recruitment activities.

Research reveals that 59.2% of businesses have already implemented wage hikes for starting salaries, while 56.1% will increase base pay. The survey also found that 19.1% of companies are not considering wage hikes but said they feel the need for them.

The survey also indicated that more businesses expressed optimism as the economy recovers from the pandemic. Nearly a third of companies said they would hire new graduates because of ‘improvement in business conditions’ and because they ‘could not hire new graduates last year.’

Meanwhile, students were also surveyed, and 68.2% indicated they would be more interested in the companies if the salaries were higher.

Over half, or 52.6%, plan to hire graduates in both humanities and sciences at the same rate as last year but also acknowledged that recruitment will be challenging because of the ‘lack of the population.’

“It can be seen that the competition to acquire human resources is intensifying due to the increased willingness to hire, and it is becoming difficult to acquire applications from students,” Mynavi said in its research.