Greying workers wanted for hire in aging Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) - Looking for work in Japan? Shigeo Hirano says you may have an edge if you are older than 60.

Hirano, president of staffing agency Mystar 60 Corp., says so-called "silver" workers are in growing demand as Japan's population ages.

"Japan's best engineers and technicians are leaving factories and offices for retirement," said Hirano, who heads the employment company which specializes in finding jobs for those aged 60 and over.

"Companies are realizing that hiring the elderly is the only way to retain high levels of skills and expertise," added Hirano, himself a sprightly 63.

Fears of a labor crunch and a deficit of skilled workers are growing in Japan as baby-boomers start hitting the standard retirement age of 60 this year, in what Japanese media have dubbed the "2007 problem."

A decline in young workers is exacerbating the concern as the population ages at an unprecedented pace.

The proportion of people over the age of 65 to total population is already the world's highest at 20 percent of Japan's population of 127 million people. The figure is forecast to hit 40 percent by 2055.

Changing demographics mean companies are looking to the elderly to clock in more years, and workers like Hiroshi Ebihara at a factory in Ibaraki, northeast of Tokyo, are eager to work.

"I want to work as long as the company will let me," the 63-year-old said, in between drilling holes in a circular block of cast steel.

"Young workers come to me for help on how to read drawing boards and anything else they don't know," said Ebihara, who has worked for decades at Mayekawa MFG Co., a maker of compressors used in warehouse freezers.

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Yasuhiro Sasaki, a 33-year-old supervisor at the Mayekawa factory, said older workers' enthusiasm, skills and experience were indispensable to his team.