Companies are eager to increase the number of workers amid the labor shortage. The trend of elderly people working for a long time will continue in the future.

DUH!

Modern neo-liberal capitalism is keen to put everyone on the treadmill and keep them there forever. I ain't buying it. I'm retiring on my 65st birthday.

@Reckless

Just need an egg, toast and coffee for breakfast, some peanut butter and jelly for lunch and chicken breast with rice for dinner, finished with netflix and a few beers before bed.

Sounds like a great post-retirement life, sign me up!

Actually, I could live without netflix, and all that food seems a bit excessive. Not really a coffee-drinker, either.

Still, the rest sounds like a wonderful daily routine!

We will all work until we die, we need the money.

Just need an egg, toast and coffee for breakfast, some peanut butter and jelly for lunch and chicken breast with rice for dinner

No fruit & veg? Where's your 5 a day?

Cost me 10 bucks a day to live like a king

If that menu is your idea of a royal feast, I'm glad I'm a lowly commoner.

all that food seems a bit excessive

Surely you mean subsistence-level.

Not that you'd subsist very long without getting beri-beri and rickets.

@Reckless

I had you pegged as rich and retiring early based on your other comments. 

Some rich people retire early, others not. The members of the boards of directors of multinational corporations are usually over 65. Early retirement would bore me.

Why is it always a case of not enough workers? Couldn't it once just be a case of too many businesses?

Are they eager enough to offer more money?

I thought not.

This is Japan. You are not here to enjoy life.

Get your arse to work.

Understand, it is work until we pass away. It is the same in all countries not just Japan.

Couldn't it once just be a case of too many businesses?

Great point. Lots of elderly business owners in Japan stay in business simply because it's all they know how to do. That includes industrial and engineering firms in Higashi Osaka and Kawaguchi founded by guys now in their 80s.

They respond to declining business by cutting workers' salaries, rather than lay offs. It's crazy. They need to retire and their young employees need the chance to gain work in a productive growing business.