Sega to Increase Employees' Salary on July 1st - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 17 February 2023 / 2,738 Views
Sega announced it plans to increase the average monthly salary of current employees by approximately 30 percent on July 1, 2023. Sega says that on an annual salary basis, the average increase would be about 15 percent.
To achieve this Sega will be "raising the base salary and increasing the ratio of base salary within annual salary by incorporating part of bonuses."
The starting salary for university graduates will increase 35 percent, from ¥222,000 ($1,652) to ¥300,000 ($2,233), due to this revision.
Sega says the reason it is revising its "compensation system" is "in order to further stabilize employee income and create a more comfortable working environment, as well as to further strengthen its global competitiveness."
The company plans to "continue to invest in human resource education, including not only the development of a compensation system that treats employees according to their roles and contributions, but also the expansion of measures to support working styles for each and every employee to live their own lives, as well as the implementation of training at the 'SEGA SAMMY College', a college within a company and language training throughout the Group."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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For what period is this salary? That doesn't make any sense as a monthly number. I see people assuming that in this thread, because that's the way Europeans typically talk about salary. But, Americans typically talk in annual salary numbers, or occasionally weekly. We basically never talk about a monthly salary. I have no idea how it is typically discussed in Japan. But, I can't see that these numbers make sense as a monthly salary. That's poverty wages in Japan.
Good news.
Can they remake Geist Force now?
That's a nice thing.
Damn that was a terribly low starting salary. At least it looks like they don't have to live with their parents anymore even if they can only afford a tiny flat in a city like Tokio. I hope they also profit from some decent bonuses because the new base salary isn't that great either.
I also thought it seemed very low, since the average starting salary for a game design job in the US with a 4 year degree seems to be like $60,000 a year these days, or $5000 a month, compared to Sega going up to only $2233 a month. What I found was several interesting things:
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This is well above the average starting salary in Japan, which is apparently around 170,000 yen per month, compared to Sega going up to 300,000 per month.
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Salary goes up substantially after you have about 2 years of experience, so if you make it through those first 2 years you should see a big pay increase. The average salary in Japan with 2 years of experience is apparently about 500,000 yen per month, or $3726 a month in USD.
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Salaries work a bit different in Japan than in the US, whereas over here your yearly salary is usually split into bi-weekly payments, in Japan your yearly salary is split into 12 monthly payments plus usually 2 or 4 bonus payments per year, so you are actually earning more per year than a monthly salary figure like this suggests. Sega is somewhat reducing their bonus payments alongside this increase in base monthly salary, but there are still additional bonus payments on top of your salary.
- Many companies in Japan will pay for housing and transportation costs as a bonus, outside of your salary, especially if you are willing to commute a longer distance and live where the rent is cheaper. The company will often pay for a basic apartment outside the city or in one of the cheaper districts of the city, as well as pay for your train costs to get to work each day. This tends to be very useful for entry level workers, they'll often take the free basic apartment and free transportation to work for those first several years until their salary increases enough that they can afford to start saving up to buy a house or afford the rent on a nicer apartment.
From 170,000 to 500,000 yen a month on average in only two years is quite a jump. The question remains. Why? Just give them 300k in year 1, 400k in year 2 and then 500k.
But it's good to hear that companies may cover the housing and transportation cost in return.
Well, it may be a more gradual raise like that, the average salary chart I was looking at jumped from the starting salary straight to 2 years and then 5 years of experience.
Great that they are getting a big bump in salary, is $2,233 a month enough money to live in Tokyo these days?
