Nearly half of major firms surveyed plan to increase hiring of recruits fresh out of school next spring, according to a Kyodo News survey released Sunday.

Of the 113 firms surveyed, 52 in the electric appliance, banking and other fields said they will increase the number of fresh high school, junior college, college and graduate school graduates in the spring of 2007.

Forty-four companies said they will hire just as many new graduates as they hired this spring.

Only three companies -- including Toyota Motor Corp. -- said they would hire fewer graduates next spring.

The remainder said they haven't made a decision or declined to answer.

The survey indicates that the outlook for new graduates has brightened, with more than 80 percent of the companies saying they will increase or maintain the number of new hires compared with this year. That's higher than the 77 percent registered in the 2005 survey, which covered 105 firms.

Companies with good earnings or those starting from scratch have begun to expand recruitment ahead of the mass retirement of baby boomers expected to start in 2007.

The level of job offers expected in 2007, however, is still lower than it was between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when Japan was reveling in its asset-inflated bubble economy. This is because many firms are trying not to upset the balance in employee age groups.