High school students hoping to begin work after spring graduation are facing the nation's severest employment conditions ever, with just 50.7 percent of them having found post-graduation jobs as of the end of October, according to an education ministry survey released Monday.

The employment rate for high school students stands at its lowest point since the ministry began conducting the survey in 1976, down 4.8 percentage points from the previous low in 1999 and down 5.6 points from a year earlier.

The employment survey was conducted by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

Some 126,000 students had not secured jobs, according to the survey.

The survey covered about 256,000 students at national, public and private high schools across Japan who are not planning to enroll in post-secondary education and are seeking jobs after they graduate.

While the results are an improvement from the 37 percent of successful job seekers recorded in a similar survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry at the end of September, the situation is still bleak, the education ministry said.

The proportion of male high school students with jobs already lined up dropped 6.1 points from a year earlier to 53.8 percent, while the figure for female students dropped 5 points to 47.2 percent, the education ministry said.

Students who took industrialrelated courses of study had the highest rate of secured jobs, at 65.4 percent, followed by students who concentrated on business courses, 52.4 percent; fisheries-related students, 49.6 percent; general education students, 48.3 percent; agriculture students, 47.3 percent; and home economics students, 46.8 percent.

On a prefectural basis, the rate was lowest in Okinawa, at 16.3 percent, followed by Hokkaido, 29.3 percent; Miyagi, 30.3 percent; Aomori, 34 percent; and Fukuoka at 34.9 percent.

The rate was highest in Gifu, at 75 percent, followed by Mie, 71.7 percent; Toyama, 71.5 percent; Aichi, 70.9 percent; and Shiga, 64.4 percent.