The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will establish a fund to provide subsidies to corporations that keep employees over the age of 65. The initiative is expected to launch by the end of the year and will be included in both the FY2016 supplementry budget and the FY2017 budget requests. The ministry plans to simultaneously create a system to support small to medium-size companies that introduce “work interval periods,” which are periods of uninterrupted rest. Both are part of the government’s labor reform initiative. (Abridged)