Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is scheduled to hold talks with the head of Japan's biggest labor union umbrella group on Monday, as he has pledged to take measures to achieve wage hikes at smaller companies and in regional areas.

The planned face-to-face meeting, announced by the government on Friday, would be the first between a prime minister and a leader of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation in 16 years, with the last held under then Prime Minister Taro Aso, a year after the global financial crisis.

Ishiba and Tomoko Yoshino, president of the group better known as Rengo, are set to meet at the prime minister's office amid growing fears that the higher tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump will stifle the country's export-oriented economy.

Concerns are mounting that the U.S. tariff hikes will weigh on corporate performance, undermining wage growth at home. In the latest "shunto" spring wage negotiations, private firms have offered average pay raises of over 5 percent above the previous year's level.

In January, Yoshino asked Ishiba to resume one-on-one talks on labor policy. She also participated in the annual convention of Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party in March for the first time in 20 years as Rengo's leader.

Rengo is the largest organizational backer of the opposition Democratic Party for the People, which has often engaged in policy negotiations with the LDP recently, as the ruling bloc lacks a majority in the powerful House of Representatives.