Student Face Bleak Job Market in Japan

(introduction & main idea)

TOKYO—More than 12,000 college students in Japan, who graduate next spring, packed into the giant Tokyo Dome sports stadium Monday with the anxious hope of landing jobs.

(more facts)

Hundreds lined up before dawn, some having traveled from distant cities for a huge job-counseling program organized by the ministry of Labor.

(back ground)

September brings the formal start of Japan’s annual job-recruitment season. But after nearly five years of recession and “job shock”, those entering the work force face the most forbidding season in years, and many have settled for jobs they would have once dismissed.

(quotes)

“I am looking for a job as receptionist, a sales clerk—it doesn’t matter,” said Takako Nakahara, who flew more than 500 miles from her two years college in southern Japan for Monday’s program.

(more detail)

High school and college graduates—especially women—have borne the brunt of Japan’s economic pain. Thanks in large part to the lifetime employment practices of most Japanese companies, the nation’s official unemployment rate is only 3.2 percent—a level Americans would consider a victory over joblessness.