Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 1Interview with Ken Ogata, President of Koreisha Inc.

Exploring a “Work Your Whole Life” Society– the Elderly as Invaluable Human Resources in JapanBy Japan SPOTLIGHT

The remarkable progress of medical science means that today more and more elderly people are in good
health. In order to prolong their healthy lifespan further, it is necessary to maintain their incentive tocontinue working longer even after they retire, at 60 or 65 in the case of Japan. By working longer, they
will be able to feel that they are contributing to society, and this would help to keep them in good health.
Having more elderly people in good health could also mitigate the labor shortage, one of the challenges
facing the Japanese economy. Working longer would also mean their salary would continue or evenincrease, and accordingly their consumption would increase as well. That would help to revitalize theJapanese economy.
Koreisha Inc., a Japanese staffing company, meaning literally a company of elderly staff, has been
providing work venues for older people for the past two decades and thus contributing to the utilization ofelderly human resources. Their working staff’s average age is around 70.
Our interview with Ken Ogata, president of Koreisha Inc., follows.
(Interviewed on July 29, 2019)

Self-Introduction

Ogata: When our founder, Mr. Kenji Ueda,
was transferred to a Tokyo Gas-affiliated
JS: First, could you please
company as president, he often saw his men
introduce yourself?
having difficulty finding staff ready to work at
the weekends in checking the functions of
Ogata: I was born in 1949 and have justgas facilities. At the same time, he saw many
turned 70. I am from Maebashi city, thepeople from Tokyo Gas reaching retirement
capital of Gunma Prefecture, around 100
age and living only on their pension, andkilometers north of Tokyo. After graduating
getting bored with having so much free time,from Gunma University in 1972, I joined
and yet with all their knowledge of gas utility
Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd., where I worked mainly inappliances and facilities. Having been
the Corporate Sales Department dealing withimpressed by a lecture in the 1990s by the
big corporations and the government
trade and industry minister, Ryutaro
ministries as clients. I was transferred
Hashimoto, in which he said that our future
temporarily to the Japan Gas Association, an
should be an age when the elderly are actively
industrial association for gas utility
working, he began to think of setting up acompanies, and also worked on gas utility
company to provide older people with places
Ken Ogatapolicy issues. I left Tokyo Gas in 2006 when I
to work and incentives to live longer. And so
was chief of the Gunma bureau. Then, after having been president of
Koreisha was started in January 2000, with several staff in the main
Tochigi Gas Co., Ltd. for eight years, I joined Koreisha Inc. in 2014
office and 25 registered temporary employees. It was started as aand became president in 2016.
contracting business for gas utility or gas appliance producing
companies. But now it has expanded to cover a wide range ofbusinesses, including temporary employee placements and private
What Is Koreisha Inc.?
employment services, and thus provides job placements for elderly
JS: In my understanding, your company was started
people in many areas.

as a staffing company mainly with people retired
from Tokyo Gas. Could you tell us how come yourcompany was born?

46 Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 2019

JS: How many people are now working for yourcompany?

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Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 1

Ogata: In our headquarters, there are around 30 staff, five of them
permanent employees and the rest temporary ones, the elderly
working three or four days a week. On July 29, 2019, some 1,125
people were registered as dispatch workers, among whom 428 are
actually working. Their average age is 70.3 and the oldest is 81.
JS: Do you truly think that people can work wellenough after retirement at 60?

Ogata: Yes, of course. In our company, we make it a rule to ask ourdispatched workers who have turned 75 if they would like to stop
working. We ask around 20 people this question every year, andmost of them respond by saying they are ready to continue working.
However, it is certainly true that people getting older than 75 would
have reached a turning point physically. So I believe 75 is the age
when you have to decide if you can continue to work as before.
JS: We see more elderly people in good health today.

Do you think our healthy lifespan is getting longer?

Ogata: Yes. People now 75 years old are in perfectly good health.
Four years ago, when we asked if they could continue after 75, halfof them retired then, but now only one or two stop working.
JS: There must be other areas than those related togas facilities that would provide jobs for older people
in good health.

Ogata: Yes, that is true. The knowledge and skill acquired during
your younger days could work well for you even after you growolder. However, five days a week just as in your younger days would
be physically tough. Our registered temporary workers are mostly
working about three days a week through work sharing with others.
For the rest of the week, they do their hobbies, or volunteer activities
or socialize with friends. The salary for most of them is around
10,000 yen per day, corresponding to about 100,000 yen per month.
There are a few exceptions of hard working elderly people in very
good health working five or even six days a week.
JS: Is there any particular attention you give to elderly

workers in specific job areas?

Ogata: Yes. For example, electric appliance makers or air conditioner
companies ask us to send registered temporary employees to assist
their engineer drivers in moving their cars to a parking space, if
necessary, to save them time in looking for a parking space or
paying a parking charge. They drive only on limited occasions, but
we check their driving qualifications in advance. If they are older than75, our check would be even more strict. Unless they pass theserigorous tests, they cannot work as a driver.

JS: What is the percentage of gas-related work to thetotal now?

Ogata: It is now 60%, so given that at the foundation of ourcompany all the work was gas-related, non-gas related work has
been steadily increasing. There is a wide range of work, including not
only driving assistant as mentioned above but also caretaker for
facilities or commercial goods, and manager for residential
apartments or buildings, as well as clerical work and sales
management. In the case of a luxury apartment in a wealthy district,
we would need a manager with decent behavior and politeness. We
look for somebody with such qualifications among our registeredemployees and let them take a training program in high-classmanners in advance.
JS: For ex-engineers with qualifications in technology,

it could be easy to find a job, but would there begood work places for those with professional
backgrounds in business administration with
degrees in social science or humanities?

Ogata: Yes, there is a need for people who work in accounting orcomputer-aided design (CAD) as well as business or sales
management. To be more specific, there is a need for elderly workers
in helping with recruitment activities. As there has been a shortage ofIT experts recently, large companies are working hard to recruit
experts everywhere, including professional schools. SMEs also find
it increasingly difficult to recruit such resources. This is the
background of the increasing demand for us to help with recruitmentof such experts. Our elderly temporary staff working in business
management are always very concerned about how much their work
is appreciated by their companies. But the companies appreciate thesincerity of such staff and in many cases their work is greatly valued
for contributing to the business.
JS: In the case of gas-related work, there must be

cases of your staff being placed in the companies forwhich they used to work as permanent employees or
those with which they used to have business
relations. Does this ever present any difficulties?

Ogata: Yes, there may be occasions where their former subordinatesor sub-contractors now give them orders in their work. On thoseoccasions, our staff should maintain a polite attitude to their clients,
following the lessons of our training course for business manners.
Otherwise, for example, talking with clients as old mates could
provoke a claim against our company. Keeping good businessmanners would earn them a good reputation and lead to the next job.
JS: There is a gap in the number of registeredtemporary employees and those actually working.
Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 201947

Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 1

most of our older workers choose a job that can balance between
their income and pension. There are some exceptional persons
working five days a week who love the job so much they do not mind
having their pension reduced.
JS: Do you think it is possible that the system of

reducing the “old-age pension for active employees”
who are earning an income exceeding a certain
amount will be abolished in the near future?

Are there any special circumstances for thoseregistered but not working?
Ogata: This gap is commonly observed all among temporary
employee placement agencies. In the case of large agencies,
registered temporary employees would reach 700,000 to 800,000,
but only around 10% of them are actually working. In our case, theratio was 40% in August 2019, relatively high. We cannot necessarily
say that all those not working are just waiting for a job, as there aresome registered with another agency and actually working. So I
believe people truly on the waiting list would be around 200.
Sometimes it is difficult to make the best fit between job requests
and the employees’ desires. In particular, in our case, there are few
people truly working mainly for money to secure their livelihood.
Rather, they tend to choose what they can do or prefer to do. There
are also some cases where technical qualifications are needed. So
there can easily be a mismatch between the needs of the clients andour workers’ personal desires. Matching is the most difficult part ofour business, but our staff work hard in searching for new job
opportunities.

Stumbling Blocks for the Working Elderly
JS: Is it difficult creating a match for those registeredwith your company who want to work just three daysa week?

Ogata: Depending on the industry or type of job, it can be difficult to
get a job unless they work five days a week. Apart from theapartment management I mentioned, working at a construction siterequires five days a week in many cases. Those clients would ask us
for a full-time worker for five days a week. But elderly people mostly
prefer to work three days a week for reasons of physical capacity.
Another reason, though, is that earning income exceeding a certain
amount would lead to a reduction of their pension. To avoid this,48 Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 2019

Ogata: Yes, I have heard this pension system is now being
examined. I believe this pension system is to be reviewed toencourage elderly people to work longer. Whenever I attend ameeting for public policy discussions on how to promote work for
older people, I advocate for the review of this pension. I think theJapanese government may have considered what I have been saying.
Another issue is that the law for temporary employee placement inJapan assumed three years as a limit and encouraged the employers
to turn those workers into permanent ones after employing them forthree years. This did not suit the needs of elderly temporary
employees, and thus was revised to make all non-permanent
employees older than 60 free from this time limit. This may benecessary for young recruits, but there must be very few elderly
ones who desire to be permanent employees after retirement age. If
we want elderly people to work longer, this kind of thinking to apply
the law to all age groups may as well be changed.
JS: How do you set up the working hours each day?
Ogata: Eight hours a day is our standard. If they work three days per
week, then the working hours per week are less than 30 hours and in
our rules in Japan they can work, while neither the workers nor thecompany has to pay for the cost of social security within the limit of
30 hours. Most of our temporary employees are working under thisscheme. Half-day work is not accepted in the light of working
efficiency and the cost of our administrative procedures.
JS: How do you think older people’s work

performances are considered by the companies?

Ogata: Our temporary employees work hard and seriously tocontribute to the success of the companies and are always
concerned about their job performance. Such dedication has been
instrumental in enhancing trust on the employers’ side andencouraging them to ask us for more temporary employees for newjobs. Our company’s business is thus based upon their reputation sofar.
JS: Do you think that recognition of being helpful totheir employers or colleagues in a workplace canhelp enhance their good health?

Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 1

Ogata: Yes. I am saying that working for someone will make you
healthy, not that because you are in good health you work. We havealso female temporary employees, though only 10% of the total.
They are also in good health. Their jobs include working as
waitresses in restaurants and as telephone receptionists.
JS: What kind of challenges has your company

encountered during the two decades since its
foundation?

Ogata: Mainly how to recruit temporary employees. We encourage
our temporary employees to introduce us to their friends andcolleagues interested in temporary work. We have a system of
paying a reward to those who introduce new employees if they work
for more than three months. We got previously information about
retired people from their companies, but now such confidential
information is not released for reasons of privacy protection. So we
now have no other way than to use our unofficial human network to
obtain such information. In short, while there are still so many job
opportunities in our society, we have a shortage of human resources
to meet those vacancies. We also occasionally see a communication
gap between our temporary employees and the permanent workers
in a company, as the quality of information about possible candidates
for our recruitment seems to differ between the two.

Future for Working Senior Citizens
JS: Do you think work opportunities or places for theelderly will increase in the future?

Ogata: Yes. As the number of elderly people in good health increases
and job opportunities for them also increase, so the number ofworking elderly must increase. I once asked the audience during aspeech I gave if their companies employ elderly people, and aroundhalf responded in the affirmative. I think if the matching between acompany’s request and a senior worker’s desire is well done, then
the number of working senior people will increase significantly.
JS: I imagine there will be an expansion of jobs andindustries for elderly workers from now on. What do
you think?

Ogata: We have been supported by Tokyo Gas in our startup and ourbusiness expanded thanks to their introducing opportunities to us. I
think electric appliance companies and companies in the service
sector could follow in our footsteps in creating business
opportunities for the elderly. We have already been asked by suchcompanies to provide them with our business knowhow. We also
have quite a few visitors from all over Japan to our headquarters to
see how our work is conducted. There are also two senior staffing
companies that have been established sharing our businessknowhow – Senior Tokai Inc. in Nagoya and Konensha 60 Inc. in
Shizuoka.
JS: So your business activities have expanded toregional areas and companies engaged in seniorstaffing have been created there?

Ogata: Yes. It is certainly true that there is a quantitative difference injob opportunities between the Tokyo metropolitan area and theregions, but I believe that increasing the number of elderly workers
can revitalize local economies. There are two issues here. One is that
there are still so many older people who are competent but not readyto take up work outside their home. The other is that there are somecompanies that remain skeptical about elderly people’s competency.
JS: How do you address such skeptical companies?
Ogata: I think it is important to highlight the value and merit ofworking with the elderly.
Working with people who have had a long and rich experience oflife would have a positive impact on young people. Young people canlearn from the elderly about how to overcome various challenges
they may face in life. In the cases I mentioned of driving assistants,
the accompanied persons in service truly appreciate the elderly
assistants’ politeness and told us they would like to work together
again with them. I hope such examples will lead to allaying theskepticism of some companies.

Future Plans
JS: Could you tell us about your future plans or the

direction of future business activities?

Ogata: I hope that Japan will be a country where many elderly people
are fully active in working, beyond the Tokyo metropolitan area which
is our company’s business area. Our company’s founder also
founded in 2010 a general incorporated association named theJapanese Council for Assisting Senior Citizens Activities (JCASCA)
as a supporting organization for the “expansion of working venues
and opportunities for senior citizens”. This small organization incollaboration with other institutions fixed Oct. 1 as the day “topromote the concept of working your whole life long”. We are now
preparing to open a forum to promote this concept on Oct. 1, 2019.
I am sure there are many job opportunities for elderly citizens. I
hope we can increase the numbers of working senior citizens in good
health all over the nation by elaborating the matching mechanisms tobridge the interests of business and senior citizens. In this way we
could revitalize the economy through increased consumption andthis could lead to a sustainable society.
Written with the cooperation of Naoko Sakai who is a freelance writer.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 201949