Sega Gives Japanese Employees "Peace Of Mind" With Another Salary Raise

Nice. We could do with western companies doing the same.

Glad to hear they're getting more pay. And a good sign, too! It's refreshing to see a message like this instead of another mass layoffs and restructuring one.

@John_Deacon don't know where you live, but here in the Netherlands it's still a thing here. At the end of the year when I have my annual review with my manager it's always part of the discussion.

Well, that's great.

@Pillowpants I too still have it here in Australia as well.

I'm gonna guess we'll get words in comments like "western" when in fact they mean "American".

SEGA must have got a massive boost from the Sonic movies

@datamonkey Just for that, here's a new round of western layoffs and you're gonna love it. /s

In all seriousness, I agree that western companies should do that, even if it is every once in a while.

So much nicer to hear than lay off's.
Care for your staff and they will care for you and your product

Can you make a living in Tokyo with 2140$ ?

@Dee123 it's amazing how a global superpower can be so insular.

@Potimarron You can. It's not the highest salary out there, but you can make do as a single person. I know people who have moved there and get around the same salary, it works for them and they're comfortable.

See, now THAT is a raise. 10% is still not even close to keeping up eith inflation - that would take a 50-75% raise lol - but it's still far more than most corporations would even consider, so Bravo to Sega, and congrats to their employees.

Meanwhile, I work for a major tech company in the US, and our raises ans bonuses have been indefinitely suspended.

@Orpheus79V OH, so that's just their monthly salary then, not their annual? If so, makes sense.

Good on Sega for increasing their workers' wages.

Sega does what American corporations don’t. The Japanese corporate culture is definitely better with lifetime employment where employees are considered family compared to US companies where they operate under at will employment and constantly throw employees under the bus just to beat an earnings quarter so the CEOs can get richer.

Meanwhile, the starting salary for new university graduates will see a similar 10% increase from 300,000 to 330,000 yen (approx $2,140).

Wait, what? Is that per year? I hope it's, at minimum, per month. Better yet, per pay period.

It’s per month. Still very low comparably, but Japanese salary systems are skewed to encourage long-term tenure afaik.

@datamonkey I Guess it's one of those things that since they're not getting paid that much to begin with, it's not that difficult to give them increases. Japanese salaries are low, compared to the "West".

@LastFootnote It's funny, cause if I earned that out of university in Australia I'd be struggling. But if I earned that out of university in South Africa I'd be doing pretty well. 350000 Yen isn't impossible for a married couple to live on a month there. Like, you'd obviously want more, but it's doable. So I imagine if you're one person it's not bad at all. (Although my memory is very foggy based on old conversations with friends)

What's the point of ending a positive article on such a negative note? The industry has enough bad news as it is

@Don: But almost every Japanese worker is super hard working, so it makes sense to value them.

I cannot remember the term, but there was an article here that the way they "fire" you is to give you an empty room with a computer with internet access where they pay you while waiting for you to use the internet to find another job.

There is no way that would work in the United States.

People would go their whole lives getting paid to be on the computer.

In the US, the average worker wants to go on a "coffee run" every 2-3 hours. In Japan, everyone would be looking at you wondering how you managed to even get hired.

@sportymariosonicmixx
Given the choice I take the long hours for job security. Maybe it’s just the grass looks a lot prettier on the other side but when I hear about other countries with much better job security, universal healthcare and college, employment benefits such as longer paid leave and vacation, and much better retirement benefits, it seems the middle class lives better in most other developed countries (At least not having to worry about medical bills or out of control tuition costs). I know the taxes are high in many of these countries with “socialism” but I live in New Jersey and the taxes here are very high. After seeing the middle class being continually worse off, I question whether “socialism” is just a word used by politicians to scare the general public in order to allow the wealthy to deny benefits for services that don’t favor them.

@Don: I would say if you regularly read a video game website, you are probably a hard worker.

I just mean our 8th grade social studies teacher told us.: "No matter how smart a newspaper writer is, they cannot use any words over 5th grade because they have to appeal to everyone."

So, even in 8th grade, I knew the average US adult has a 5th grade education.

Asians really care about their education and Japan is even more hardcore. I heard that Japan teaches their 9th graders calculus because they do not spend the first 3/10 months of every school year reviewing what they did last year.

The average Japan worker is so much more educated that the company would be willing to treat them like family. The average US worker probably actually "works" 2 of the 8 hours in an average work day, so why would the company value them?

But, on the other side, the US companies themselves are pretty corrupt too. You mentioned medical bills being out of control. A solid 1/3 of medical cost is just to insurance companies costs to create all those thousands of insurance plans that do none of the actual health care work.

Additionally, when I was visiting my Mom in the hospital, I was just trying to get her a bottle of water and it was this huge production because every nurse I asked claimed she was on break. I blurted out: "Your supervisor would not put all of you on break at the same time. Can someone just get me a damn water?"

If we just paid for health care like you buy any other item and only paid to people doing actual work, the health care costs would be 3/4 cheaper.

@HammerGalladeBro Don't let Sega fool ya, they lay off massive numbers of people every year.