January 19, 2011
A record-low 68.8% of university students graduating in March received job offers, according to the education and the labor ministries’ joint survey result released on January 18.
The figure was the lowest since 1996, when the ministries started compiling data, and the rate has declined for the third year in a row.
Among students graduating this March with science and engineering majors, 71.3% got jobs, down by 7.3 percentage points from the previous year, and 68.3% of students majoring in liberal arts could find jobs, 3.7 points lower than 2009.
The percentage of male students who found jobs is 70.1%, a drop of 2.9 percentage points from the same period of 2009, while the rate for female students was 67.4%, down sharply by 5.8 percentage points. The rate of female graduates of junior colleges who found work marked a record-low 45.3%.
The survey also shows that the employment rate of students graduating from high school in March slightly increased by 2.5 points to 70.6%. However, high school students still face a severe job shortage.
Education expert Ogi Naoki commented, “A crucial factor in this situation is that the government fails to take any effective measures to increase employment opportunites for young people. Another factor is that corporations don’t recognize and accept their social responsibilities.”
Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Miyamoto Takeshi pointed out, “Large companies have been replacing full-time workers with non-regular workers. This is the main cause of the decline in the employment rate of new graduates.”
Miyamoto also said, “Using 3.4% in corporate internal reserve funds amassed over the past year can create new jobs for 157,000 young people graduating from universities or high schools in March. The government should encourage the business world to hire more new graduates and increase efforts to take all necessary measures to accomplish this without delay.”
The figure was the lowest since 1996, when the ministries started compiling data, and the rate has declined for the third year in a row.
Among students graduating this March with science and engineering majors, 71.3% got jobs, down by 7.3 percentage points from the previous year, and 68.3% of students majoring in liberal arts could find jobs, 3.7 points lower than 2009.
The percentage of male students who found jobs is 70.1%, a drop of 2.9 percentage points from the same period of 2009, while the rate for female students was 67.4%, down sharply by 5.8 percentage points. The rate of female graduates of junior colleges who found work marked a record-low 45.3%.
The survey also shows that the employment rate of students graduating from high school in March slightly increased by 2.5 points to 70.6%. However, high school students still face a severe job shortage.
Education expert Ogi Naoki commented, “A crucial factor in this situation is that the government fails to take any effective measures to increase employment opportunites for young people. Another factor is that corporations don’t recognize and accept their social responsibilities.”
Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Miyamoto Takeshi pointed out, “Large companies have been replacing full-time workers with non-regular workers. This is the main cause of the decline in the employment rate of new graduates.”
Miyamoto also said, “Using 3.4% in corporate internal reserve funds amassed over the past year can create new jobs for 157,000 young people graduating from universities or high schools in March. The government should encourage the business world to hire more new graduates and increase efforts to take all necessary measures to accomplish this without delay.”
