With bankruptcies rising due the COVID-19 pandemic, this has imposed more challenges in landing a job after graduation to graduating university students in Japan. It is apparent these days in Japan that recruitment has been drastically changed due to COVID-19.
The ‘worker’s market’ used to be a place where these graduating students gain employment with ease. However, today it has disappeared completely due to the pandemic. Now, these graduating students are entering the job market unsure of what their future holds.
A 21-year-old third-year student in a private university commented that the conventional way of job hunting doesn’t work anymore. He began job hunting last Spring. He has joined approximately 30 internship programs at different companies but the majority are just held online. He is doubting his chances because he might not be able to exhibit his traits and skills effectively since he is not given a chance to work in person in the actual office since everything is done online.
A human resource firm called Recruit conducted research resulting in 11.6% of 4,516 companies confirming that they will slash the number of recruits among those graduating from universities or graduate schools next spring, compared to the previous year, while 7.7% responded they will hire more from this demographic. The restaurant and hotel industries are among the most affected.
Many currently graduating students have not found work in April. Some have considered being in other alternative industries such as food and delivery which were initially not part of their original plan just to survive and avoid risking unemployment.
Some universities, such as Meiji University, have organized online job fairs to help their graduating students minimize the hurdles in landing a job after graduation. It was a successful event which was participated by nearly 700 companies in Japan. Their goal is to match their graduating students with good jobs that they are satisfied with.
Reference: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210305/p2a/00m/0bu/001000c
