Fourteen new recruits joined the Financial Supervisory Agency Thursday as the first new staff to be hired based on the national public service exam since the watchdog was launched in June.
Eleven of the group are new college or graduate school graduates and three have career experience with private financial institutions. All the new workers are in their 20s. One new employee, Mizue Yagi, 26, quit working at the failed Yamaichi Securities Co. two months before it collapsed in November 1997, she told reporters after attending the entrance ceremony. "I think the financial authorities were responsible for (Yamaichi's) reckless management," she said.
Tomohiro Miura, 23, a Keio University graduate, said he wanted to perform "surgical operations" on financial institutions, which he believes need to improve productivity.
In an address to the freshmen, FSA Commissioner Masaharu Hino encouraged them to improve their English, accounting and knowledge of personal computers.
The FSA debuted with a staff of some 400, most of them from the Finance and other ministries. It took over the supervisory function of the Finance Ministry, which had been criticized for its opaque, arbitrary administration.