Japanese wages see healthy increase in February

Japan's labor cash earnings for February rose by +0.9% y/y vs +0.2% expected. The upbeat readings represents the first increase in wages since October last year.

As Reuters notes: "Wage rises are crucial to the government's efforts to stoke demand and defeat deflation. Regular pay, which determines base salaries, rose an annual 0.6% while overtime pay rose an annual 0.4%. As per special payments, it rose 25.7% y/y, the biggest gain since May 2011."