Does Skill-development make elderly japanese more marketable?

Work incentives for the elderly Japanese male are much higher relative to those for the elderly in the other developed countries. The 2005 International Comparison of Old-Age Persons’ Attitude about Life Finance [Kōreisha no seikatsu to ishiki ni kansuru kokusai hikaku chōsa], conducted by the Cabinet Office, asks the elderly male about a desirable retirement age regardless of his current working status. The results show that 32.7% of the Japanese, 4.6% of the French, only 2.4% of the German, and 14.4% of the Americans responded “70 years old.” However, many elderly Japanese workers would be faced with unemployed because most Japanese firms have a mandatory retirement system. According to the 2004 Survey on Employment Management, conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (hereafter referred to as the MHLW), 100% of firms with more than 5,000 employees, 99.3% of firms with 1,000-4,999 employees, and 99.6% of firms with 300-999 employees adopt the mandatory retirement system in Japan. This is very different from the case in many other countries, including the U.S., where it is prohibited by law that employers retire their workers only because they reach a certain age. The Japanese firms with mandatory retirement systems are perfectly willing to employ workers one day but force them to retire the next. That is, most Japanese employees are unemployable after mandatory retirement age. If mandatory retirees want to continue working after mandatory retirement, they would have to seek a new job. The 2004 Annual Report on the Labour