40% of Japanese University Students Graduating Next Year "Successful Employment"... Companies "Preemptive Talent Acquisition"

Job Offers for Japanese University Students Accelerate
Competition Among Companies Intensifies

It has been revealed that the job offer rate for university students graduating in 2026 in Japan is close to 40%. This means that 4 out of 10 current third-year university students set to graduate next year have already secured job offers.

The photo of the Japanese job fair is unrelated to the specific content of the article.

On the 21st, NHK reported, "Recruit, a Japanese employment portal, released the results of a job-related survey conducted on 929 university students graduating next spring." According to this, the job offer rate for students graduating next year is 39.3%. This figure is 15.4 percentage points higher than last year’s rate of 23.9%, marking the highest since 2016.

According to the survey, 76% of students graduating next year responded that they have experienced interviews. Following that, 48.1% said they have undergone the final selection process, and 27.9% said they have not reached the final selection but have experienced interview stages.

The industry with the highest job offer rate is the "Information and Communications Industry" (72.4%). It ranked first again this year, with an increased percentage. Next were "Service Industry" (17.5%), "Manufacturing Industry" (12.1%), "Retail Industry" (11.8%), and "Machinery Manufacturing Industry" (10.5%). Additionally, 20.6% of students have already decided on their career paths, which is 6.5 percentage points higher than the same period last year (14.1%).

Photo from the recruitment fair held at Nihon University in Japan, unrelated to the article content.

Officially, job fairs conducted by Japanese companies start on March 1st. Recruitment processes such as interviews begin on June 1st. Recruit pointed out that as job hunting activities accelerate, companies are likely to start hiring earlier than the official schedule. There is a trend of IT companies and large corporations moving up their recruitment periods. Recruit analyzed, "The ongoing labor shortage has intensified competition among companies to discover talent," and added, "The active and efficient recruitment activities conducted online also appear to be a contributing factor."

Through the survey, students expressed, "We are glad to have decided on our career paths early," but also noted, "As job hunting starts earlier, university students tend to neglect their primary duty of studying."

Takajo Kurita, director of the employment information portal Mirai Research Institute, advised, "As job hunting activities speed up, it is important for students not to rush and to find companies that truly suit them."