Job Offers for Graduates Down 7.4%

Written By: guyjin on November 20, 2009 5 Comments

Job offers for graduating job seekers as of October 1 were down to 62.5%, which is almost level with the lowest marks of 60.2% and 61.3% from 2003 and 2004 respectively, which were the lowest marks of the last decade and a half. But the rate of decline from a year earlier (7.4%) is greater than has been seen since records have been kept from 1996.

68.5% of science and technology graduates that were looking for work had received job offers, by the beginning of October, but liberal arts students receiving offers fell 9.2% over the year before, down to just 61.2%. For students at public universities, 71.3% had offers, which was almost 12% higher than students at private universities (59.6%). Women were also less likely to have an offer (61.6%) than men (64.4%).

The overall unemployment rate in Japan has ticked down a fraction from its high of 5.7% in August of this year, but is still a high 5.3%. Japan’s unemployment rate has hovered between 4 and 5% for most of the last decade, but has not been consistently this high since 2003, when graduate job offers were also at their lowest level. The unemployment rate bounced back somewhat in 2004, averaging in the high 4% range, but it took some time for this bounce-back to affect graduate employment prospects.

Source: Job offers to University students plunge