Japanese begin job search long before graduating

Sayaka Itakura's priority at the recent start of her final year in Tokyo was to start the laborious process of finding a job.

The schedule she has drafted involves reading annual reports, meeting company officials, sitting tests and attending formal interviews. Sayaka's final 12 months at university, which started in April, will be dominated by the job search rather than worry about exams.

Some of Sayaka's classmates have tried to gain a head start by beginning job searches back in December, more than 15 months before their March 2000 graduation dates. "Jobs for graduates next year will be scarce," Sayaka said. "Japan will start the millennium with record high graduate unemployment."

The fears of Sayaka and other senior students are more than justified. With Japan in its worst recession since the war, fewer firms want to hire large numbers of graduates. Most of the traditional big graduate employers plan to cut recruitment. IBM Japan, one of the most popular targets for job-seeking students, has said it will hire only 500 graduates in 2000 - 100 fewer than this year and 1,200 fewer than the boom years of the late 1980s.

Banks and financial institutions have also announced drops in the numbers they plan to recruit. "The economic situation is forcing many companies to drastically reduce their payrolls, and cutting graduate recruitment is one of the easiest ways to do this," said Kazuo Takahashi, a senior student careers adviser.

Job prospects are particularly bleak for women. "Japanese companies prefer to recruit men, especially in a recession," Kazuo said. "They still expect female employees to cut short their careers for marriage and a life in the home." One estimate said that women accounted for almost two-thirds of the 100,000 or so university and college students who were unemployed after graduating in March.

The ministries of education and labour have responded to the slump in job offers by urging employers to recruit more final-year students. They also began schemes to give job-seeking students more information and guidance.

Several universities and colleges are offering courses to develop the communication, personal presentation and other job skills that they hope will help senior students find work.

Employers' reluctance to take on graduates is compounded by the view that graduates often lack patience, commitment and perseverance.