00:02Tony Chu just turned 70.
00:04He's been waiting tables at this restaurant for the past seven years
00:08and goes by the nickname Jujai or Little Pig.
00:12So many people come in here and ask, is little pig here?
00:16Normally people assume a little pig would be young.
00:18They can never guess I'm this old.
00:22He lives alone.
00:24When he retired at 60, he says no company would hire him except for Ginkgo House,
00:29a social enterprise and restaurant chain that provides jobs for the elderly.
00:33He's one of nearly 300 elderly people working there.
00:37When I first started, it felt like my brain was functioning at a slower speed.
00:41But after doing it for a while, my brain started working faster and faster
00:46because there were so many things I needed to take care of.
00:50In Hong Kong, more than one in five people are aged 65 or above.
00:54It's projected to hit one in three by 2046.
00:57According to the Census and Statistics Department.
01:00Hong Kong does not have a statutory retirement age,
01:04but companies typically set it between 60 and 65.
01:07Seniors often work to fight boredom and loneliness.
01:10But in a city with a limited social security net,
01:13many rely on an income to make ends meet.
01:17Ginkgo House's CEO says with more than half a million elderly people living in poverty,
01:22senior employment needs to become the rule, not the exception.
01:25We're a drop in the bucket.
01:27We need a lot more private companies to invest more time and training and dollars
01:34into developing a senior citizen workforce,
01:37just because there's going to be way more elderly citizens in need of jobs.
01:45Last year, policymakers unveiled a string of silver economy incentives to keep elderly citizens in the workforce.
01:51But many companies are still reluctant to hire seniors due to higher training and insurance costs.
01:58It needs to be done together.
02:00It's not like you ask people not to retire, then the problem is gone.
02:03Beyond raising the retirement age, it is possibly also time to encourage residents to save more for retirement.
02:13The waiter at Ginkgo House may have reached the age when most people slow down.
02:17But he wants to prove age is just a number until it's not.
02:23I will keep doing this job until I get sick to the point that I cannot walk.
02:27Then I'll stop.
02:30As the city's demographics shift, the challenge is clear,
02:34keeping more little pigs in the workforce to save its aging economy.
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