Many companies have received economic benefits from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policy of “Abenomics.” However, according to new information reported in the Wall Street Journal, the corporate share of those profits has not been distributed to workers. Profits are up, but they are not being shared with workers. The statistics, which have been compiled since 1990, show that workers are getting a smaller piece of the pie than ever.

The labor share of value added is a rough measure of how much workers receive relative to what companies make. It is one measure of the fairness level of overall distribution of benefits from companies. In the April-June quarter, the labor share fell to 58 percent, the lowest level since 1992. At the same time, corporate profits have continued to rise.

Though Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda broke with tradition in 2014 to ask that companies not sit on their accumulating profits, but instead raise worker pay, that has not happened. Executives are clearly not yet listening to his entreaties and are instead letting wages fall to the smallest share in over two decades.

This seems to indicate caution and conservatism in the minds of executives. They seem mired in models that prioritize the safety of the corporation with insufficient consideration to taking care of their own employees and helping stimulate the economy. The economic downturn seems to have made corporations more conservative than ever.

The government needs to make sure that company profits also benefit individual workers, particularly in terms of better salaries. When the BOJ governor says he is interested, that is one thing. But when the government ensures that workers are receiving their fair share of profits, it will be much more likely to have an effect. The promise of Abenomics was that gains among big companies would trickle down to workers, and thereby stimulate the economy. That has yet to happen.

Another element of the problem is the shift from workers in full-time regular employment to more and more in non-regular employment. With the passage of the bill that allows companies to more easily employ nonregular employees without the benefits of regular employees, the effect is to compound the situation where companies receive ever-higher profits, while workers receive a much smaller share.

Japanese workers, notorious for their dedication, overtime and unpaid holidays, are continuing to add to the profits of their corporations, only they are not getting as much back as they should. The government’s policy of encouraging companies to raise wages for employees seems to be falling on deaf ears. Now is the time to find a more persuasive structure for turning the profits of Japan Inc. back into higher wages and economic stimulation.