The education ministry's survey of schools as of May 1 sheds light on difficulties that high school and university graduates are encountering in the job market. The government and the corporate sector should take a serious look at the results of the annual survey, which were made public Aug. 5, and consider ways to increase employment.
At universities, there were a record 2.559 million undergraduate students and a record 271,000 graduate students as of May 1 — an increase of 32,000 and 7,000 from the year before, respectively. Women accounted for a record 42.1 percent of the undergraduate students and 30.3 percent of the graduate students. In April, a record 54.4 percent of high school graduates directly went on to four-year universities, two-year colleges or other schools of higher education.
But of this year's high school graduates, only 15.8 percent were able to find jobs — a drop of 2.4 percentage points from fiscal 2009. Only 329,000 university graduates, or 60.8 percent, found employment — a drop of 7.6 points from fiscal 2009, the largest yearly drop since the survey was started in fiscal 1948. Some 19,000 university graduates, or 3.6 percent, chose to take temporary jobs such as part-time jobs — an increase of 6,000 from fiscal 2009.