Oldest Female McDonald's Worker

 

Recently Japan has been encouraging older people to re-enter the work force to make up for worker shortages. Legislation that came into effect in April 2021 allows companies to abolish their previous mandatory retirement age (typically at 60 years old) and raise the age of retirement to 70, or allow a subcontracting type of agreement. 

The latest government report shows the current number of Japanese people aged 65 and older working is the highest number ever, with 9.27 million people or 13.4 % of the labor force employed. 

McDonald's employee Tamiko Honda, age 90, has recently been featured in the news. She was born in 1933 in Kumamoto Prefecture and spent the majority of her career working in the nursing field until she reached the mandatory retirement age of 61.  After that she work as cleaning staff at a university until she was 67, which was the mandatory retirement age in that field. In 2000, she applied for a position at McDonald's after her only daughter told her McDonald's had no retirement age. Unfortunately, her daughter died of cancer at age 58, twelve years ago. Ms. Honda's longtime hobby of sewing is difficult do to her declining sight and many of her friends have passed away or are dealing with dementia, so her job at McDonald's is a welcome distraction. 

She travels 20 minutes by bus from her home to the McDonald's where she works, five days a week to work three hours a day, sweeping the interior of the store. She is adored by her co-workers and customers.  The store manager, at age 51, is the same generation as Ms. Honda's grandchildren. 

According to McDonald's Japan, while she is the oldest female employee in Japan's 3,000 restaurant location, she is not the oldest employee.  A 95 year old man is employed at a branch in Toyama Prefecture. Ms. Honda started work as an employee at McDonald's in 2000, so she has been working longer than Mr. Yabuta, who started in 2019.