Until a decade ago, it was common in Japan that people worked many years for the same company. Changing jobs, especially in your 20s, was frowned upon, giving the impression that you were unable to overcome and adjust to obstacles in the workplace. Because of this, recruiters focused on hiring new graduates who had great potential to contribute to the company. In fact, corporations would hire a large number of new graduates in April every year. For the first few years after they joined companies, they were trained without being expected to show a performance equivalent to their salaries.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Unique companies' attitudes toward new graduates in Japan
In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced a few weeks ago that the employment rate for new graduates of four-year universities this March was 60.7%, down 7.6 points from last year (In Japan, the school term begins in April and ends in March). It turned out that 16.7% of the graduates had neither enrolled in graduate schools et cetera nor started working. These graduates are most likely to find themselves in a serious situation since they will have great difficulty getting a job. This is becoming a social problem.
Until a decade ago, it was common in Japan that people worked many years for the same company. Changing jobs, especially in your 20s, was frowned upon, giving the impression that you were unable to overcome and adjust to obstacles in the workplace. Because of this, recruiters focused on hiring new graduates who had great potential to contribute to the company. In fact, corporations would hire a large number of new graduates in April every year. For the first few years after they joined companies, they were trained without being expected to show a performance equivalent to their salaries.
With the introduction of Western management systems and the Japanese economic downturn, however, more and more companies have reduced the investment in their new young employees and have come to seek for people having job experience and expertise. Job changes have more common, although frequent job changes in your 20s are still disadvantageous.
However, having said that, most of the companies, especially corporations, still interview large numbers of university juniors and seniors to secure capable human resources, and then officially promise some of them that they will be hired if they can graduate. This indicates that if university seniors don't get an offer before graduation, it will be very difficult for them to obtain a stable job after graduation. Because of this, when university seniors realize that they have no chance of obtaining an offer before graduation, they tend to fail classes purposely in order to stay in university since an undergraduate status gives them more opportunity to get a stable job.
It's been said that the issue of how society will increase employment opportunities for new and young graduates without job experience is a challenge in the current recession. However, the future of Japan depends on them. I've heard that this attitude toward new graduates is unique, although South Korea seems to have a similar attitude.
In your country, how do new university graduates get a job?
Until a decade ago, it was common in Japan that people worked many years for the same company. Changing jobs, especially in your 20s, was frowned upon, giving the impression that you were unable to overcome and adjust to obstacles in the workplace. Because of this, recruiters focused on hiring new graduates who had great potential to contribute to the company. In fact, corporations would hire a large number of new graduates in April every year. For the first few years after they joined companies, they were trained without being expected to show a performance equivalent to their salaries.
