This re-orientation of policy appears to have had an impact since the number of freeters had by 2008 declined more than 20% from the 2003 peak. The Japanese government should continue its policy aiming to reduce the precariousness of youth employment, and in this respect the principal recommendations contained in the OECD’s Jobs for Youth: Japan report remain valid. Policies in the 2000s included the further expansion of participation in Silver Human Resource Centres, which now have almost 1 million members (about 5% of the total population aged above 70), and the introduction of an option for firms of implementing a system for continued employment after their mandatory retirement age, rather than increasing the mandatory retirement age itself.