About half of 40 major Japanese companies polled by Kyodo News plan to hire more new university graduates next spring than this year, making it certain overall job offers will increase for the second year in a row.
The poll shows 16 companies plan to hire more new university graduates. These include electronics firms Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which will hire more new graduates in order to raise the number of engineers involved in information technology amid bright prospects for demand for IT-related goods.
Five of the companies polled replied that they have yet to come up with a new hiring plan for next year, while 17 firms said they plan to keep their job offers unchanged from this year's levels.