More Japanese College Students Want to Work at Large Firms

May 30, 2018

Tokyo- College students in Japan increasingly prefer to work at major companies amid strong corporate appetite for workers due to the country's labor shortages.

Many companies in the country will start interviews and other selection procedures for job-hunting college students expected to graduate in spring 2019 on Friday.

A total of 138,800 undergraduate and postgraduate students expected to graduate in spring next year want to work at companies with at least 5,000 employees, up about 12 pct from a year before, said Recruit Works Institute, a research division of human resources company Recruit Holdings Co. <6098>.

Meanwhile, the number of positions available at such large companies rose only some 5 pct to 51,400, or 37 jobs of every 100 seekers.

Job-seeking students "hope to work at large companies due chiefly to expectations from people around them, but the number of available positions is not increasing drastically," said Fusako Takei, a senior researcher at employment information company Disco Inc.

"Getting jobs (at large companies) is highly competitive in all ages," Takei said.

The number of job offers from companies with 300 employees or less remains far above that of the figure for applicants. There are 46,700 applicants, or only 10 pct of 462,900 jobs available at such companies for those expected to graduate next spring.

The imbalance reflects an image that smaller companies treat employees more poorly than large companies do, Recruit Works Institute said.

A growing number of students are optimistic about their job-hunting activities amid a seller's market.

A Disco survey found that 50.4 pct of students expected to graduate in spring 2019 believe they can get jobs more easily than a year earlier, about double the level in the previous year's survey.

"Given the seller's market situation, more than a few students think they can get positions easily or secure informal job offers from large companies," an official at Meiji University's career support center said.

Job-seeking students are becoming "polarized into quick and slow starters," the official said. Jiji Press