OSAKA -- In a bid to help job-seekers in the Kansai region, where the unemployment rate exceeds the national average, Osaka Prefecture Wednesday kicked off Job Information Fair '99, featuring 200 computers listing 15,000 jobs.
The three-day event, held at the prefectural gymnasium in Naniwa Ward here, marks the second job fair organized by the prefectural government.
Because 4,000 attended last year's two-day event, organizers initially expected up to 7,000 job-seekers to turn up this year. But after some 1,000 arrived in the first hour, they said they could not predict how many more would show up.
As well as the computer-based job-reference system, the fair offers counseling to those who wish to start their own business.
A 55-year-old man from Nishinari Ward, who declined to be named, said he has been looking for a job for more than a year. He quit his job at a sake bottle collection company last year as the industry as a whole was waning.
"But the age limit of most job offers stops at 50, and it is very hard to find a job that accepts a 55-year-old man. I can hardly secure an interview," he said.