Japan Press Weekly

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2011 February 16 - 22 [LABOR]

Would-be graduates forced to do temporary jobs at would-be employer companies

In Japan, as a result of the early start of college students’ job-hunting activities, some of them receive an informal hiring decision from companies by the time of their senior year. However, there are companies that use college graduates they gave an informal job offer to as temporary labor in the guise of pre-training.

One female senior student of a private university in Tokyo received an informal job offer from a major transportation company in July last year. In September, the company sent her a letter asking, “Would you like to do some temporary job in preparation for starting work?”

From September, she worked three days a week as a temporary staff of a customer relations center. Her hourly wage was 1,000 yen. She said, “I thought if I make a mistake, it will harm the company’s image so I felt more responsibility for my job than in other casual part-time jobs I’ve had before.”

In the case of one male student, he worked at a company which runs an education-related business from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends with a daily wage of 1,500 yen until his graduation after receiving an informal hiring offer.

There is one case in which a company in the amusement industry withdrew its job offer to a male student because he was absent from the company’s meeting with college graduates on an unofficial payroll. He explained that he had to absent himself in order to attend his father’s funeral. However, the company rejected his claim as inexcusable.

A male worker of an agency sending temporary workers to software-related companies talked about his experience. He said, “Although I was a senior, I had to attend the training session of eight hours a day for five days a week from September 1.” Students were not obliged to attend the training. However, if they failed to finish the training, the agency would have withdrawn its job offers. During the training, the agency only paid for students’ transportation fees.

College students endure companies’ harsh treatment because they are afraid that if they refuse to accept temporary jobs in the name of training, companies will cancel their informal hiring decision. The government should create rules to protect college graduates from companies using them as cheap labor.