The average pay rise offered by 231 firms for both full-time and part-time employees was the biggest since 2013, amid signs wage hikes were broadening, reports Reuters, citing Japan’s largest industrial union UA Zensen. The union, an umbrella group established in 2012 that represents 2,237 unions and 1.8 million workers, announced a weighted average 5.9% wage increase this year for full-time workers and a 6.5% hike for part-timers at the labour talks that wrapped up on Wednesday.

UA Zensen workers have sought total wage increase of 6%, two thirds of which is to be in base pay hikes, which would push up the wage curves and provide the basis of pay raise, retirement bonus and pension payment. Last year, Japanese firms offered workers the highest wage hikes in 30 years. Average Japanese workers' wages had remained stagnant since the asset-bubble burst in the early 1990s. For the second straight year, UA Zensen's pay demand exceeded that of Rengo, Japan's largest trade union confederation, which called for pay hikes of 5% or more this year.