More than 130,000 elementary and junior high school students were truant for 30 or more school days during the 1999-2000 academic year, according to an Education Ministry survey released Friday.

A total of 130,208 students missed school without permission between April 1999 and March this year, up about 2,500, or 2 percent, from the previous academic year and the most since the statistics were first taken in the 1991-1992 year.

The rate of increase in the number of absentees slowed significantly, however, from the more than 10 percent rises posted in the three consecutive years starting with the 1996-1997 year.

"The rate of truancy at schools where they have counselors is low," the ministry said.

Some 104,000 junior high school students -- up 2.4 percent from the 1998-1999 year -- and about 26,000 elementary school students -- an increase of 0.1 percent -- were found in the survey to have missed 30 or more school days.

The figures correspond to 2.45 percent of all junior high school students in Japan -- one in every 41 -- meaning roughly one student in each class refused to attend school. One of the reasons often cited is bullying by other students.

The figure for elementary school students was 0.35 percent, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, the number of people who neither landed full-time jobs nor continued their education after graduating from high school, junior college or university increased to about 295,000, due in part to the continuing economic recession.

About 121,000 graduates from universities, 42,000 from junior colleges and 132,000 from high schools were in this category.

The employment rate of new university graduates dropped 4.3 percentage points to a record low 55.8 percent, with only 301,000 out of the 539,000 graduates taking full-time jobs and with many of the remaining students continuing on to graduate school.

Between 30 percent and 40 percent of the combined 163,000 university and junior college graduates who neither landed full-time jobs nor continued on to graduate school went to vocational schools, indicating a growing number of youths are hoping to gain special qualifications to help in their search for work.