The Nippon Keidanren business federation has held down wage growth since 1993, but it is changing course with an end to deflation in sight and corporate earnings on the rise, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

The federation would include its new recommendation in a report to be released on December 13, the paper said.

The report is expected to urge mainly large corporations to increase wages, including through a monthly base wage hike, and to introduce performance-based pay systems, the paper said.

The business federation is shifting its stance because employee workloads are rising sharply as the economy recovers, the paper said.

Because firms have pushed ahead with job cuts "we cannot create guidelines that take the same line as that of previous years," the paper quoted a high-ranking Nippon Keidanren official as saying.