Toyota Motor Corp.'s labor union plans to demand a monthly average pay rise of 10,100 yen ($92) per union member in this year's spring wage negotiations, sources close to the matter said Thursday.

The amount is less than the 10,700 yen raise agreed last year with the major Japanese automaker's management, which faces intensified competition in the development of self-driving and electric cars.

The pay rise includes hikes in regular wages based on a worker's age or length of employment as well as base pay. Last year, the union sought a raise of 12,000 yen.

The labor group called for bonuses worth 6.5 months' worth of pay, down from 6.7 months granted the previous year, reflecting an increasingly uncertain global economic outlook.

The body will also demand a wage system that will better reflect each employee's performance rather than age or length of employment, in order to improve union members' incentive to work.

The union will present to its members the planned demand next Monday and finalize it on Feb. 7. Toyota's negotiations with its union are a trendsetter for annual wage talks in Japan.

This is the seventh consecutive year that the automaker's union has demanded a pay-scale hike, although the specific amount for an increase in base pay has not been released with the union focusing rather on securing overall improvement in benefits for employees.

Toyota posted a record group net profit and sales for the April-September period in 2019 on robust demand in Europe and China, but its consolidated operating profit and sales are projected to fall from a year earlier in the year to March 2020.

==Kyodo

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