The current Act prescribes that the Government shall provide support in collecting information on job offers and job seeking opportunities for the aged to promote their employment, in developing their vocational skills, in enabling re-employment of elderly retired persons, etc., and that the employer has an obligation to endeavor to support job-seeking activities of the aged who plan to leave their job due to age limit, etc.

As the population structure rapidly ages, however, the number of elderly retired persons who are able to continue working regardless of age is increasing, and especially in the case of retired persons who have worked in a professional field for a certain period, being unable to utilize their experience and expertise which have been accumulated over a long period of time in certain fields can be regarded as a significant loss on a national level.

Also, despite the obligation of employers to endeavor to support job-seeking activities of the aged, retired persons are experiencing difficulties in re-employment due to lack of clarity regarding ‘job-seeking activities,’ limitations stemming from an obligation to ‘endeavor to support,’ etc., such that being ‘unprepared for retirement’ including failure of self-employment, etc., is becoming a serious social problem.

Therefore, this proposal aims to provide a basis for providing advisory and/or counselling services as well as financial support for a business or place of business in the subject field of a retired person from a professional field to utilize their knowledge and talents and strengthen efforts to promote their employment, to expand re-employment support services to enable elderly persons planning to leave their jobs due to age limit, etc., to smoothly transfer to another job, and to strengthen efforts by employers to provide re-employment support services by ensuring that places of business of a certain scale or above shall provide re-employment support (Articles 11-5, 21-3).