Photo/Illutration A counter for elderly people seeking a job at a job-placement office in Wakayama (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In total, 30.8 percent of companies in Japan have a system that allows employees to work after turning 66 as part of a government initiative to broaden job opportunities for older workers.

The figure was up 3.2 percentage points compared with last year, according to a Nov. 22 announcement of the results of a survey by the labor ministry.

With the aim of alleviating the shortage in human resources and securing funds to keep up with expanding social security costs, the central government has a policy that requires companies to try to keep job opportunities open for older workers until they reach 70.

"Once a new system we have been considering is ready to be implemented, elderly employment will be more widely adopted among companies," an official of the elderly employment measures section of the ministry said.

In the survey, companies with 31 or more employees were asked about the elderly employment situation as of June 1, with 161,378 of them providing valid responses.

Broken down by size, 25.3 percent of big companies, with more than 300 staff members, allow employees aged 66 and older to continue to work. A total of 31.4 percent of small and midsize companies with at least 31 staff members do the same, indicating greater opportunities at smaller firms.

An executive of an organization of small and midsize companies, citing the labor crunch, said, "They cannot operate their businesses unless aging employees continue to work."

Among companies that have such a system, 84.1 percent offer re-employment as contract workers to staff who have reached retirement age.

At the same time, 8.7 percent have abolished the retirement age limit and 7.3 percent raised the retirement age to over 65 years old.

Among the other survey results, 11.7 percent of companies allow all staff members who hope to work after turning 66 to do so, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous year. Among small and midsize companies, 12.6 percent have such a system, compared with just 4.2 percent of large companies.