Job wage (English spelling)

Wages are determined based on the worker's job duties, and together with skill-based pay, it is the main form of job-based pay. It originated in the United States in the 1920s as part of labor management, and was widely used in the 1940s as a countermeasure to the decline in motivation to work caused by the fall in real wages, and saw widespread use. After World War II, it spread to developed countries as well. In Japan, it began to be introduced after 1955 (Showa 30) against the backdrop of the need to revise seniority-based pay, which came about due to the segmentation of work content and the breakdown of job types into tasks caused by technological innovation during the period of high economic growth, and then, in the early 1960s, it became widespread with the simultaneous introduction by major steel companies. Job-based pay is set in the following three stages.

(1) Conduct a job analysis of all target jobs to determine the scope of work included in each job and the conditions necessary to perform it (knowledge, skills, qualifications, etc.), thereby defining and standardizing the jobs.

(2) For each determined job, a job evaluation is conducted to measure its importance, difficulty, responsibility, etc., and the relative value of each job is determined based on the results.

(3) The wage rate is determined by linking the evaluation results to the wage. In many cases, the final wage rate is determined by taking into account not only the evaluation results but also market wage trends and the company's wage policy.

Job-based pay can be broadly divided into individual job-based pay, which sets a different wage rate for each job, and job-based pay by job grade, which groups each job into several job grades and sets wage rates for them. There is also a distinction between single-job-based pay, which assigns a single wage rate to one job or job grade, and range-based pay, which provides a certain range of wage rates. In Japan, while seniority-based pay remains, a compromise is often taken, with range-based pay, which allows seniority-based pay increases within the same job or grade, becoming mainstream. In addition to this, Japanese job-based pay has a strong intra-company character, and it has been pointed out that it has a strong labor policy flavor, with the degree of responsibility in job evaluation essentially being defined as the degree of contribution to the company.

Job-based pay seems to be a reasonable and fair wage in that it is paid according to the content of the work, but there are no objective standards for the selection of evaluation factors in job evaluations, how they are weighted, and how the evaluation results are linked to wages; many aspects are subjective, being largely influenced by the will of the company. Furthermore, the setting of quotas by job inevitably gives rise to promotion control, leading to promotion competition among workers and discriminatory management by companies, and so on, which actually exacerbates unfairness, and there is strong opposition from labor unions.

[Toshikazu Yokoyama]

"Japanese Job Salaries" by Kenji Kojima (1966, Otsuki Shoten)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

労働者の職務を基準として決められる賃金で、職能給とともに仕事給の主要な形態をなす。1920年代にアメリカで労務管理の一環として生まれ、40年代、実質賃金の低下による労働意欲の減退に対する対応策として広く活用され、本格的普及をみた。第二次世界大戦後、先進諸国にも拡大した。わが国には、1955年（昭和30）以降、高度成長下の技術革新による労働内容の細分化と職種の職務への分解、それに伴う年功賃金の手直しの必要などを背景に導入が始まり、60年代初頭の鉄鋼大手による一斉導入を契機に広範化した。職務給は以下の三つの段階を経て設定される。

(1)対象となる全職務について職務分析を行って、各職務に含まれる作業範囲、その遂行に必要な条件（知識、熟練、資格）などを決め、職務を確定し標準化する。

(2)確定された各職務について、重要度、困難度、責任度などを測定する職務評価を行い、その結果に基づいて各職務の相対的な価値序列を決める。

(3)この評価結果を賃金に結び付けて職務賃率を定める。その際、評価結果以外に市場賃金の動向、企業の賃金政策などが加味されて最終的に決定される場合が多い。

　職務給は大別すると、各職務ごとにそれぞれ異なる賃率を定める個別職務給と、各職務をいくつかの職級にまとめて賃率を定める職階別職務給とがある。また、一つの職務・職階に単一の賃率を対応させる単一職務給と、賃率に一定の幅をもたせる範囲職務給との区別がある。日本の場合、年功賃金を残しつつ、それとの妥協的形態をとる場合が多く、同一職務・職級内で年功昇給する仕組みをもつ範囲職務給が主流となっている。日本の職務給は、この点に加えて、企業内的性格が強く、職務評価の責任度も事実上企業貢献度として規定されるなど、労務政策的色彩が濃いことがその特徴として指摘されている。

　職務給は、仕事の内容に対応して支払われる形態をとっている点で合理的かつ公正な賃金のようにみえるが、たとえば職務評価における評価要素の選定とそのウェイトのかけ方、評価結果と賃金との結び付け方には客観的基準はなく、多分に企業の意向によって左右されるなど、主観によるところも多い。また、職務別定員の設定が昇進統制を不可避的に呼び起こし、労働者相互の昇進競争、企業による差別的管理を招くなど、かえって不公正さを拡大する側面ももっており、労働組合の側には根強い反対がある。

［横山寿一］

『小島健司著『日本の職務給』（1966・大月書店）』

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