Vol.33-No.09 September 1,1994
The percentage of the elderly aged 55 and older in the labor force is rapidly increasing in Japan. Amidst this situation, the Japanese government is actively promoting retirement at age 60, employment of older persons including those in their early 60s, and maintenance and expansion of employment opportunities for these people. For the moment, the government is vigorously encouraging continuous employment until the age of 65.
The 1994 Survey on Employment Management, compiled recently covering approximately 6,000 private enterprises with 30 and more regular workers, makes a report on such areas as the mandatory retirement age at firms. Replies were received from 5,000 of the 6,000. The survey is carried out each year to clarify the realities of firms' employment management programs.
According to the survey outcome, 90.5 percent of the enterprises polled have a compulsory retirement age program. Of these, 96.9 percent have a uniform age limit, with 84.1 percent setting the mandatory retirement at age 60 or over.
Of those firms with a maximum uniform age limit, 70.5 percent implement either or both continuous employment and/or re-employment practices. More specifically, 20 percent have a continuous employment system alone while 38.9 percent have re-employment alone and 11.7 percent have both.
Of those enterprises which have either continuous employment or re-employment with the uniform age limit, 36.4 percent of those with continuous employment and 26.5 percent of those with re-employment "continued to employ or re-employ all that wish to work as a rule" (firms with both systems were included in each of the two programs; and the same shall apply hereinafter). The smaller the size of the enterprise, the higher the percentage of firms which do so. Furthermore, 40.5 percent of those adopting continuous employment and 51 percent of those implementing re-employment "limited those programs to those selected by the enterprise as specially needed workers". On the whole, the larger the company, the higher the percentage limiting these practices to specially needed employees.
Let us see what changes occurred, such as positions, after continuous employment or re-employment was effected when compared with that before reaching the mandatory retirement age. Under continuing employment, the proportion who noted their positions "remained unchanged" was high at 43.3 percent, while that of those who said their positions "were changed" was 31.9 percent. Regarding job content, a high of 76.8 percent said "remained unchanged." Regarding wages, 43.6 percent said "remained unchanged," while 40.3 percent replied "decreased."
Regarding changes in treatment with re-employment, a high level of 52.9 percent said their positions "were changed from those before mandatory retirement". On job content after re-employment, a high of 63.3 percent noted "did not change," and on wages, fully 63.5 percent replied that they had "decreased."
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