Internships in Japan have really taken off in recent years, and are increasingly becoming diverse in the content and opportunities offered.
According to a 2018 survey by Recruit, 68.1 percent of Japanese companies offered internships in fiscal 2017, up 8.7 percentage points. Moreover, 73.7 percent of the firms surveyed were expecting to offer internships in fiscal 2018.
Some 25.6 percent of the companies specifically sought to use the internships as a way to identify potential future employees, while 47.5 percent said that that was not the explicit purpose of the internship per se but that in the end the internship led to some participants being hired. Furthermore, 73.6 percent of the companies hired graduating students who participated in internships sponsored by the company.