In addition, the unemployment rate has remained at a low level. These indicators of supply-demand conditions in the labor market show that the degree of labor market tightness has been at the level last seen in the first half of the 1990s or in the first half of the 1970s.
Amid such supply-demand conditions in the labor market, the latest rate of base pay increase for fiscal 2019 is about the same as the actual rate for fiscal 2018. The year-on-year rate of increase in scheduled cash earnings of full-time employees is in the range of 0.5-1.0 percent.