The percentage of seniors at universities and graduate schools in the Tohoku region who have received tentative job offers has surged to nearly match the national average, a survey found.
The percentage of seniors at universities and graduate schools in the Tohoku region who have received tentative job offers has surged to nearly match the national average, a survey found.
The monthly survey of Mynavi Corp., which runs an employment information website, showed that 58.2 percent of the Tohoku students who will graduate in March 2012 had been given tentative job offers by the end of August. The national average was 58.5 percent.
Companies generally send official job offers to potential employees in October.
Many companies delayed their employment examinations scheduled in spring due to the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake. The subsequent delay in issuing employment notifications led to lower rates than in normal years. But in the hardest-hit Tohoku region, the decrease was particularly sharp because many of the affected students suspended their job-seeking efforts while local corporations refrained from recruiting employees.
At the end of May, the percentage of Tokohu students offered jobs was about half of the national average. But partly because some corporations leaned toward hiring Tohoku victims of the disaster, the gap between the national average and the rate for the Tohoku region narrowed.
"Unofficial employment notifications also increased because students expanded the scope of their potential work places to the entire nation," said a guidance counselor at a private university in Miyagi Prefecture.
Thanks partly to the government support, the university could introduce its students to companies in the Tokyo and Kansai areas, he added.