There are also widespread predictions of greater leisure spending, but a counter-trend is emerging of companies re-hiring the retirees for a number of reasons:
- To cover the skills gap
- To prevent know-how being transferred to competitors in other N E Asian countries
- To utilise a low-cost resource
For some time now, retired Japanese managers have been working in Korea and China, passing on the know-how gained in thirty years of working life.
Japanese companies' strict retirement rules forced them to retire, but at the same time, these companies were complaining of lack of skilled personnel.
Recently, the penny has dropped and many companies have realised that , as they can pay re-hired retirees lower salaries than they were previously receiving, they can kill several birds with one stone by re-hiring. Many employees are happy to have the opportunity to keep working and take up the offer either from their former company or one in the same sector.
The upshot of this is that the boom in leisure activity might not be as great as predicted. Given a choice between sitting in a hot spring sipping sake and continuing to commute to the office, it seems that many prefer the latter.
