About half of 40 major Japanese companies polled by Kyodo News plan to hire more new university graduates next spring than this year, making it certain overall job offers will increase for the second year in a row.

The poll shows 16 companies plan to hire more new university graduates. These include electronics firms Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which will hire more new graduates in order to raise the number of engineers involved in information technology amid bright prospects for demand for IT-related goods.

Five of the companies polled replied that they have yet to come up with a new hiring plan for next year, while 17 firms said they plan to keep their job offers unchanged from this year's levels.

Taisei Corp. and Seiyu Ltd. said they plan to hire fewer or no new university graduates next year, findings that reflect their tough business environment.

Taisei, a major construction company saddled with huge interest-bearing debts, said it will make fewer job offers to new university graduates next spring.

Seiyu said it will not hire any university graduates because the supermarket chain faces deteriorating profitability that forced it to skip dividends since the business year that ended in February 1998.

In a sign that a series of restructuring efforts have run their course, major traders Sumitomo Corp. and Marubeni Corp. plan to offer more jobs to new university graduates.

The 16 companies due to offer more jobs also include Nissan Motor Co., which plans to resume hiring liberal arts graduates.

Despite the brighter employment outlook, remarks by personnel managers at some major firms suggest it is still difficult for university students to land a job at such companies.

"There is concern about a deterioration in earnings, so we'll be careful about offering provisional job contracts," an official in charge of personnel at one major firm said.