The employment rate for people who graduated from college in March rose for the second straight year, standing at 93.9 percent on April 1, the start of the business year, up 0.3 percentage point from a year earlier, the government said Friday.
The employment situation for college graduates has been recovering since the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, a labor ministry official said.
"Companies are resuming job offers, while joint efforts by colleges and Hello Work job-placement offices to help students find jobs have had positive effects," the official said.
The rate, however, is 3.0 points below its peak in 2008 and around 24,000 graduates are believed to still not have an offer.
To address the situation, the labor and education ministries are engaged in a job-hunting campaign for college graduates through June.
The employment figures exclude those who went on to graduate school or stayed in college for another year because they could not find jobs. Among overall graduates, the rate for landing jobs came to 66.0 percent, according to the two ministries.
The rate for female graduates came to 94.7 percent, up 2.1 points, exceeding that of male graduates, which stood at 93.2 percent, down 1.3 points.
The government said 93.4 percent of humanities majors and 96.2 percent of science majors found jobs.
The employment rate for graduates of two-year junior colleges rose 5.2 points to 94.7 percent, the highest since officials started compiling comparable statistics in April 1997.
The rate for job-seeking high school graduates as of the end of March increased for the third straight year, rising 1.0 point to 95.8 percent — 96.9 percent for males and 94.2 percent for females.
