As the recruitment season for high school graduates begins in Japan next spring, local companies are scrambling to secure high school graduates. As the shortage of manpower becomes increasingly serious due to low birth rate and population decline, companies are offering exceptional salaries and welfare benefits not only to college graduates but also to high school graduates.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Wednesday, TKC, an accounting system company, has decided to expand the system that allows all high school graduates who will join the company next year to enter college at company expense. Freshmen who graduate from high school are allocated part of their work hours to college classes and aim to graduate within five years.
The company’s personnel manager told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, “The purpose is to recruit talented people who could not go to college for economic reasons,” adding, “There are cases where high school graduates are already active in the company after graduating from college.”
According to a tally by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of high school students who want to get a job after graduation next spring was about 126,000 as of the end of July, up 0.5 percent from the previous year. During the same period, the number of job openings for high school graduates increased 0.3 percent to 467,000, and the ratio of job openings reached 3.69, continuing to be similar to last year’s peak (3.70).
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun analyzed, “The ‘job seeker advantage market’, where the demand for hiring far exceeds the number of job seekers, is pushing to improve the treatment of high school graduates.” In fact, express bus operator Wheeler Express is promoting that it can receive an annual salary of 6 million yen from its first year of employment, regardless of experience and age. Redlobster Japan, a restaurant company, announced its plan to double the number of high school graduates from five per year by improving treatment and improving working conditions. Hitomairu, a major liquor company, also operates a system that supports the cost of obtaining a driver’s license after joining the company and exempts all expenses when serving for three years.
More and more companies are introducing or strengthening the employment of high school graduates. More than 30% of Japanese companies announced that they would increase the number of high school graduates in the 2026 graduate recruitment plan, and 34% of companies began hiring high school graduates within the last five years.
In Japan, it has been customary for prospective high school graduates to confirm their employment through the recommendation of teachers in charge, and college graduates have been looking for companies freely. Recently, however, as new college graduates are frequently notified of their turnover to other companies right before joining the company, companies seem to be paying more attention to high school graduates who can hire them stably.
EJ SING
US ASIA JOURNAL
