An estimated 72,000 of this year's crop of high school and university graduates looking for immediate employment had not secured jobs as of late March, according to two recent government surveys.
The surveys reveal that those who failed to secure employment after leaving high school numbered around 29,000, while those in the same position having graduated from universities and junior colleges averaged 43,000.
One of the surveys was carried out by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on around 267,000 public and private high school students. The other was conducted by the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare on a representative sample of 5,860 university students.