It's that time of year again, the season when employers, both public and private, hand out their summer bonuses. In recent years the recession has kept the amounts down despite the fact that regular employees tend to consider them as an integral part of their annual salaries. In fact, society in general thinks that, as proven by the practice of incorporating bonuses into repayment schedules for home loans. Technically, however, bonuses are literally bonuses: Employers are not obliged to pay them, and actually use them as a kind of safety valve to adjust personnel expenditures twice a year.

This summer the news sounds good. Bonuses are, on average, higher than they were last year, by about 8.8 percent, according to a survey of 74 companies carried out by Keidanren, Japan's biggest business lobby. The average bonus for a 35-year-old regular worker will be ¥1.5 million, while that for a manager in his 40s or 50s is above ¥3 million. It's the highest year-on-year increase on record.

According to Josei Jishin magazine, the biggest bonuses are being given out by trading companies, which makes sense. Trading companies, who do all their business overseas, enjoyed a huge windfall after the government's monetary easing policy forced down the value of the yen.