Administration March 8, 2004

Japan Pensions Not "Aging" Well: Report

August 27, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Three quarters of Japanese employee pension funds were underfunded at the end of fiscal 2000, a Dow Jones report said.
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The news report quoted a government report saying that assets weren’t sufficient to meet liabilities at 1,377 of the funds during that time.  The report from Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry was released Monday, according to the Tuesday morning edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

According to Dow Jones, worldwide struggling markets didn’t help much in 2001 with a -4.16% average investment return – a figure that has prompted companies to continue abandoning pension plans.

Between April 1 and August 1 this year, 10 such funds were canceled, a faster pace than in fiscal 2001, when a record 59 were shut down.

There are 1,801 pension funds across Japan as of the end of fiscal 2000 covering 11.3 million workers or about one-third Japan’s total salaried employees.

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