Dec 24 (Japan Times) - Electronics makers are revising pay scales to attract competent engineers, including by throwing salaries of more than ¥10 million per year at recruits fresh out of college.
The shift is being spurred by intensifying global competition for top information technology engineers and the race to develop artificial intelligence.
NEC Corp. introduced a new personnel system in October that hiked base salaries and removed the cap on Japan’s semiannual bonuses. First-year employees can earn more than ¥10 million a year straight out of school if they wrote highly rated research papers while in university.
Fujitsu Ltd. will introduce a system by the end of the business year to March that gives preferential treatment to employees of any age who have advanced expertise mainly in AI, including salaries that pay several tens of millions of yen even to new graduates. It will also adopt a new mechanism to compensate employees purely on the basis of their work assignments and roles without regard to seniority, beginning with managers.
The reforms are being pushed by Fujitsu President Takahito Tokita, who took the helm in June. During his assignment in London for two years, Tokita strongly felt the need to adopt a merit-based pay system.
The reforms will “increase opportunities to recruit diverse human resources,†he said.
Among its rivals, Sony Corp. has raised basic annual pay to as high as ¥7.3 million, effective in July, for new employees with advanced skills in AI and other fields.
Competition for talented engineers is growing across the world.
