The government intends to raise the retirement age of government employees from the current 60 to 65 by fiscal 2030, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
A bill to revise the National Public Service Law and other relevant articles will be submitted to the current Diet session, with the goal of raising the retirement age by 1 year every two years from fiscal 2022. The aim is to pass this bill into law as early as possible.
The government has discussed how to extend the retirement age to 65, whether spreading out the increases every two years or every three years. As of April 2019, those aged 44 or older made up more than half of all government employees.
Under the circumstances in which a large number of veteran employees will soon reach their retirement age, the government deemed it would be necessary to raise the retirement age soon to secure these experienced workers, according to sources.
To ensure that personnel can inject new life into the workplace, the government also plans to introduce a system in which government employees in managerial posts such as director general are shifted to nonmanagerial posts when they reach 60.
Currently, government employees aged 60 or older are allowed to continue working under the reappointment system. Of the about 13,000 government employees who used the system in fiscal 2018, 66% worked shorter hours. Of these workers, slightly less than 20% had wanted to remain full-time workers, but for various reasons, including the quota for full-time workers, they had to work shorter hours. The extension of the retirement age is also aimed at solving such a situation.
The government seeks to realize a society in which highly motivated elderly people will be able to continue working for a long time. A government panel studying social security for all generations compiled an interim report in December last year proposing among other things the securing of work opportunities for employees at companies to continue working until 70.
On the other hand, the government does not intend to increase the quota of government employees after raising the retirement age. As it is feared that the age composition could be distorted if the number of new employees extremely decreased, the focus will be on how the number of newly employed and those who work continuously can be balanced.
The government is considering reducing the salary of government employees aged 60 or older to 70% of the amount they had received. How to curtail personnel costs, however, will be another issue to address.
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