You are right. I know some Japanese company whose Japanese employee salary is only half of the salary for a same level US employee. However the US employee only get 401K sort of pension, Japanese employee has Japen's pension system. Another important difference is that US employee's salary is before tax, Japan employee's salary is after tax. If considering the tax payment and pension, company spend about the same amount for US and Japen employees. US companys give employees lots of stock options. Japan companys only give limited stock options to its upper management team. Japan companys do give higher bonus to all employees than US company.
