Many high school grads still unemployed

High school graduates in Hokkaido this spring did not benefit from the strong economic recovery, which has generally boosted employment of high school graduates in big cities.

As of the end of January, the nationwide average number of high school senior students who had been promised employment stood at 88.1 percent, a gain of 2.8 percentage points from the previous year, making it the second highest employment rate in the last 10 years.

However, in less-populated areas, many high school graduates are still pounding the pavement to find work in their hometown or other areas.

"We're unemployed, though we've graduated, and we're depressed. I just want a job," a high school graduate in Kushiro, Hokkaido, said.

Out of 145 graduates from a public high school in Kushiro, 49 are still unemployed since graduating in March.

Another graduate, 18, who found a job in mid-April said that before she got the job, she was ashamed to face her parents, so she confined herself to her room.

Last summer, she began to get information from a local job center and took exams for three companies, but the number of applicants was always five to six times more than the one to three jobs available.

She graduated without landing a job and was depressed that she had to continue going to the job center.

In mid-April, when she was looking for a part-time job, one of her high school teachers helped her get a position with a funeral service company. "Some of my friends are still unemployed after taking exams for 10 companies. I was about to give up on finding a job," she said.

In late April, Hello Work Kushiro, the job center in Kushiro, was still displaying a poster that calls on companies to give local high school graduates an opportunity to work.

A Hello Work Kushiro official said the poster was put up last summer, but the office did not feel that it should be taken down yet.

"The economic expansion is said to be the longest after the war, but people here don't feel that way," he said.

A 19-year-old who graduated this spring sought help from the center. He did not look hard for a job when he was a student, but concern about his future after graduation prompted him to interview for two jobs, which he did not get.

He is now working at a karaoke box parlor, but is looking for full-time work. "A freeter can be fired any time, so I don't have job security," he said.

About 10 new graduates visit the office each day, and recently, many of them are accompanied by their parents.

Hidemitsu Muroya, a deputy chief at the office, said local companies had not increased the number of workers they needed.

As of the end of March, the number of high school graduates who had received job offers stood at 78.2 percent in the eight cities, towns and villages under the supervision of the office.

Of the 68 graduates of a prefectural high school in Goshogawara, Aomori Prefecture, who landed jobs in spring, only 19 work for companies in the prefecture. The other 49 work for companies, such as bargain stores and hotels, in the Tokyo metropolitan and surrounding areas.

A high school teacher who offers career counseling for students said he told them that with the job market remaining weak in the prefecture, they could seek better-paying jobs in other prefectures and then return home someday.

As of the end of March, the number of high school graduates in the prefecture promised job surged 2.4 percentage points to 90.7 percent, but 55 percent of them received promises from companies outside the prefecture.

This is the first time since the early 1990s that the number of high school graduates who work for companies in other prefectures is higher than the number working in the prefecture, indicating that the economic recovery has not trickled down to the prefecture.

By region, as of the end of January, Hokkaido had the lowest job offers with 66.6 percent.

The 84.6 percent in southern Kyushu, 85.1 percent in northern Kyushu, 85.3 percent in the Sanin region and 86.7 percent in the Tohoku region were lower than the national average.

Tokyo Metropolitan University Prof. Akio Inui, an expert on freeters, said that in areas that have not seen an economic recovery, it remains to be seen whether the employment situation will improve.

"Measures to improve employment have to take local situations into consideration in light of the gap in employment rates in localities," he said.
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'Working poor' living at Net cafes


Some big city companies hire young people from other prefectures as full-time employees, but many outsiders can only find part-time jobs, and some of them have become the so-called working poor, meaning they cannot free themselves from low-paying jobs.

Recently, many young people in urban areas, including Tokyo, are starting to use Internet cafes or comic book cafes as lodgings.

A survey conducted in April by the National Confederation of Trade Unions and other organizations in 10 prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka and Aichi prefectures, found that nearly 80 percent of 34 Internet cafes had young people who had become "long-term residents."

Makoto Kawazoe, secretary general of the Metro Tokyo Youth Union, said the number of part-time workers in cities had increased.

"Young people who have been dismissed have to leave the dorms. Since they don't have any savings, they can't pay deposits and key money for an apartment. That's why they live in Internet cafes," he said.

(May. 5, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070505TDY02005.htm