BOJ to revise Tankan survey, adds wage data collection
The Bank of Japan plans to revise its quarterly Tankan business survey. The changes include the introduction of a new wage survey and the abolition of certain inventory-related items, with implementation expected around the first half of 2027.
Tankan to capture wage dynamics
The Bank of Japan's Tankan survey will introduce new items related to wages, reflecting their increased importance for analyzing economic and price conditions.
Recent wage increases in Japan are attributed to higher CPI inflation and intensifying labor shortages.
The Tankan, covering approximately 10,000 enterprises, offers high timeliness, making it suitable for complementing existing wage statistics.
The new survey will cover all Tankan respondents, including financial institutions, collecting year-on-year rates of change in scheduled cash earnings per regular employee.
Data will include actual results for the previous fiscal year (June survey) and forecasts for the current (June and December) and following fiscal years (December survey).
This design ensures consistency with other Tankan items like business conditions and profit projections, providing valuable data for users.
Designing the wage data collection
The new wage survey will be conducted twice a year, in June and December, balancing data recency with respondent burden.
Scheduled cash earnings are defined as monthly fixed cash earnings, excluding overtime and bonuses.
The response format uses a range selection with 15 options, from "around -4% or lower" to "around +10% or higher.
" Compilation will use simple averages, prioritizing reduced respondent burden over weighted averages.
Pilot surveys in September 2024 and June 2025 showed 58% of companies revised their FY2025 wage forecasts upward.
This highlights the need to accumulate data to understand revision patterns, as December forecasts may not yet reflect labor-management negotiations.
A crucial step, with data challenges
The Tankan's new wage survey is a crucial and timely enhancement, reflecting the growing importance of wage dynamics for monetary policy analysis.
While the design balances detail and respondent burden, initial pilot results show significant forecast revisions, underscoring the need for accumulated data to interpret patterns accurately.
This move strengthens the Tankan's relevance but highlights complexities in real-time economic measurement.