On April 1, 2021, the Japanese government finally announced the formal implementation of the "Amendment to the Employment Safety Law for the Elderly". The law stipulates that the maximum retirement age is 70, although it is now not mandatory and allows people who are 65 years old to retire on their own. Choose whether to continue working for five years, but it is obvious that Japan’s mandatory retirement age will be extended to 70 years old sooner or later.

There are a long list of questions that follow. For example, should the minimum age for pension payments start at 70? Will the pension premium payment be extended to the age of 70? Do people who continue to work over the age of 65 continue their original employment contract, position and salary? Does the workload of these elderly workers need to be reduced? Do you provide them with additional work injury and accident insurance? ... There are many controversies surrounding this bill.

The Japanese government began to implement the 60-year-old retirement system in 1986, the 65-year-old retirement system was implemented in 2006, and the 70-year-old retirement system was announced in 2021. Why has the retirement age been postponed many times?

The main reason is the insufficient pension in Japan, which is already a well-known problem. Japan’s population structure has been aging for more than 50 years. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, the proportion of the elderly population over 65 has increased from 7% in 1970 to 29% in 2020. However, the labor force (referring to the age at the proportion of people between 15 and 64 years old has dropped from 67.1% to 54%, which means that the taxpayer population has dropped significantly. This will inevitably lead to a reduction in the Japanese government's fiscal revenue, which will directly affect the accumulation of pensions.

As early as 2000, people in the economic circles pointed out that according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's forecast of the Japanese population in the next 50 years, pension funds will soon be in deficit and will go bankrupt by 2050, warning the government to study solutions as soon as possible. The NHK report in August 2019 also clearly pointed out that Japan’s pension savings will be exhausted by 2050, and Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is studying the feasibility of deferring the pension payment age to 75. The move to postpone the retirement age to 70 is obviously to prepare for the next postponement of the pension payment age.

Postponing the age of pension payments directly reduces the total amount of pensions that need to be paid. Of course, it is the most direct emergency rescue method and can immediately alleviate the problem of insufficient government pensions. However, Japan postponed the retirement age from 65 to 70 again, only 5 years in the middle. Does this prove that this method can only maintain a validity period of 5 years? Is it true that as reported by the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Association), the real plan of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan is to finally postpone the age of pension payment to 75?

Although the average life expectancy of Japanese people has exceeded 84 years, not everyone can live to 70 or 75 years old, or health conditions allow to continue to work, for those who have paid a lifetime premium but fail to live to 70 or 75 years old. 75-year-old, is such a policy fair? Does this harm the well-being of many people?

The second main reason is the shortage of labor force. Although Japan is a country with high welfare and longevity, the total population has been declining year after year. In 2019, it decreased by 290,000 people. According to the forecast data released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, the total population of Japan in 2050 will be less than 100 million.

Why? This is because the aging of the Japanese population and the declining birthrate occur at the same time. Due to the advancement of medical technology and the improvement of living conditions, the average life expectancy has increased, and the number of elderly people has increased. The inverted triangle is also foreseeable. The shortage of labor force is not only a current problem, but will continue to deteriorate. This is directly caused by the continuous decrease in the new-born population and has become an irreversible trend.

According to data released by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on January 29 this year, the total labor force in Japan in December 2020 was 68.6 million (54% of the total population), and the labor force’s employment rate was only 77.5%. The decrease has led to a continued decrease of 2.9% in the newborn population. Insufficient labor is the biggest obstacle to economic development. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan predicts that the labor gap will reach 6.44 million by 2030. Among them, nursing support will be short of 380,000 by 2025. A company survey shows that 66.4% of companies face employees. The difficulty of shortage.

In addition, the 2020 pandemic has made it impossible to complete the original 300,000 student program and the introduction of foreign workers, which has exacerbated the labor shortage in Japan. Extending the retirement age to 70 years old can alleviate the labor shortage to a certain extent, but It cannot solve the problem fundamentally, and it is impossible to continue to postpone the retirement age indefinitely. Let us wait and see how long the retirement age can be maintained if the retirement age is delayed by 5 years.

The author believes that there are many other ways to solve the problem of labor shortage. For example, the use of high-tech robots can replace a lot of manpower, especially in industries and industries that require low skills, repetitive operations, labor-intensive or high-risk work environments. This is a more efficient solution.

The author once participated in a research project and learned that in 2019, nearly 50,000 new high-intelligence industrial robots were used in manufacturing and service industries in Japan, which not only solved the difficulties in recruiting and personnel management of these enterprises, but also When the economic benefits exceed expectations, it is foreseeable that this is a development trend, and more companies will use robots to replace employees in the future.

The Japanese government should actively support the development of high-intelligence industrial robots, IT and AI and other high-tech industries. Automation and robots can really help solve the problem of labor shortage to a large extent, and it is one of the long-term and stable solutions. Of course, there are many other methods worth exploring, such as increasing the introduction of foreign workers.