The Bank of Japan's latest regional survey is catching attention for one key detail: multiple areas are reporting that companies aren't just raising wages for part-timers anymore—they're hiking pay for permanent staff too. This signals real wage pressure across the board, not just at the margins. It's the kind of labor market tightness that central banks watch closely when calibrating policy. When permanent workers start seeing meaningful raises, inflation expectations tend to get more entrenched. For those tracking macro trends and their ripple effects on asset markets, this is worth noting—wage-price dynamics are always in the background of the bigger economic picture.