Price hikes raise eyebrows

Still, there are some signs of price rises, with even companies famous for their low prices not immune. One of those firms, yakitori chicken restaurant chain Torikizoku Co Ltd this month raised its prices 6.4 per cent, the first time in 28 years. And Japan’s largest parcel deliver company, Yamato Holdings, this month increased home delivery prices by around 15 per cent, the first such rise in almost three decades. Other delivery firms have quickly followed suit.

Yamato become a poster child for Japan’s labour crunch after it booked billions of yen in charges to provide backpay to delivery drivers who had been overworked and underpaid.

“We have confronted the deterioration in working conditions for our front line staff,” Yamato Holdings President Masaki Yamauchi told reporters last week. The company has promised to hire 10,000 new delivery staff by the end of financial 2019 to ease the strain on the 55,000 full-time drivers, who will have their overtime reduced.

The new staff will be mainly hired from among those who already work for the company as outside contractors, the company says.

On Sunday, billionaire founder of fashion retailer Start Today Co Ltd Yusaku Maezawa tweeted that shoppers on his Zozotown fashion site will be able to choose how much to pay for delivery. “If this led to a sharing of feelings between the carrier and the recipient I think it would be lovely,” Maezawa tweeted.