Japanese housewives have stashed away the most “secret” savings in at least eight years, underscoring the challenge for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to encourage consumers to spend.
The value of the cash and investments that housewives hold without telling their husbands rose 8.2 percent from a year ago to ￥4.16 million (US$41,500), a report released yesterday by the Sompo Japan DIY Life Insurance Co showed. The total was the highest on record in data back to 2005.
Japan’s housewives tend to control budgets — often keeping their husbands in the dark — making their saving and spending habits one indicator of the health of consumers in the world’s third-biggest economy.
While Abe’s strategy of monetary and fiscal stimulus and deregulation has helped stoke corporate profits, wages have stayed flat and companies have accumulated record cash rather than boosted investment.
“Japanese housewives continue to hold financial power in households,” said Koya Miyamae, an economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc in Tokyo, whose wife manages his family budget.
The rise “could be because housewives are still concerned about the outlook of Japan’s economy,” he said.
The survey showed the average summer bonus for Japanese salarymen was still 10 percent below the 2007 peak even after an increase this year, helping cement “a strong intention” to save, said Makiko Uematsu, group leader of public relations department at Sompo Japan DIY Life Insurance Co.
The bump in precautionary savings coincides with signs that wives are trimming their spouse’s monthly allowances. The average monthly spending money Japanese husbands received fell to the lowest since 1982 this year, a report showed earlier this week.
Even so, consumer spending has strengthened this year as Abe seeks to revive the nation’s economy after two decades of stagnation. Retail sales gained 1.5 percent in May from the previous month, a government report showed last week.
Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Japan’s biggest department store operator, cited higher sales of women’s handbags, clothing and shoes for driving a 5.7 percent increase in sales from a year earlier last month, a report on Monday showed.
Sales of women’s clothing accounted for 23 percent of department sales nationwide in May, according to Japan Department Stores Association. Men’s clothing accounted for 7.5 percent.
The survey by Sompo Japan showed that 89.8 percent of housewives said they were not feeling any positive effect from the economic measures Abe has taken since he took office in December. The prime minister is running a campaign for a July 21 upper house election, with opposition parties saying his policies have failed to raise incomes.
Salaries were unchanged in May from a year earlier, the Japanese labor ministry said this week.
Sompo Japan surveyed 500 housewives from June 7 to 12.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
RSS