Nomura Holdings Inc., Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and their biggest rivals plan to cut hiring of university graduates by almost half, just as the industry begins emerging from its deepest slump in seven decades.
Nomura, Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. will hire a combined 4,190 graduates on April 1, down from 8,026 a year earlier, data from the firms show.
The firms risk leaving themselves short of staff as trading and stock sales recover from last year's bust and competition stiffens in the securities market, said Katsunobu Komizo, head of Executive Search Partners Co. in Tokyo. A similar misstep in the 1990s left them unprepared when the benchmark Topix index embarked on a four-year winning streak in 2003, he said.