In Japan, where college graduates are almost guaranteed to get a job regardless of their liberal arts, there is a possibility that a self-help buzzword such as “I’m sorry it’s a liberal arts course” will come out in 10 years like in Korea. According to the Mainichi Shimbun on the 19th, at an expert meeting held by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on the previous day, “There is a possibility that there will be a surplus of about 300,000 people in liberal arts, while there is a shortage of more than 1 million people in 2040.
It is expected that the demand for science and engineering personnel will increase and the demand for liberal arts personnel will decrease due to changes in the industrial structure following digitalization.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is considering expanding subsidies for science and engineering departments at private universities in response to the growing demand for science and engineering personnel.
According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 17% of Japanese national and public universities enrolled in 2020, far below the 2019 average of 27% by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Instead, the proportion of social science (32%) and humanities (14%) majors among Japanese public and private universities has been discussed as a task for educational authorities.
However, until now, employment itself is not very difficult for college graduates, who are about 600,000 per year due to the overall shortage of workers in Japan.
In fact, the employment rate of college graduates reached 98.0% as of early April this year, which was announced by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare after a sample survey of 4,770 public and private universities nationwide.
In other words, 98 out of 100 job seekers can have a job upon graduation.
The employment rate of liberal arts graduates was 98.2%, which was slightly higher than the average. The science department was counted as 97.3%.
SOPHIA KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
