An education ministry survey, whose results were released on Aug. 27, has found that of 559,000 young people who graduated from universities in April, 128,200 or 22.9 percent have no stable employment.
The numbers show that the employment situation for young people is very dire. The fact that such a large number of young people have no stable employment threatens the basic fabric of Japanese society. The government, the business community and universities need to take the situation serious and take all possible measures to change it for the better.
According to the survey, 335,200 graduates or 60 percent managed to find stable employment, including permanent positions. But 21,900 were only able to find fixed-term employment, 19,500 landed temporary jobs such as part-time jobs, and 86,600 neither found any employment nor went on to higher education.