OSAKA (Kyodo) Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. has launched a new entrepreneur recruitment program targeting fresh college graduates, company officials said Wednesday.
The program is aimed at helping to create new businesses and promoting entrepreneurship in Japan, they said. It involves hiring entrepreneur candidates as presidents of new Matsushita subsidiaries on a three-year contract.
They will be paid the same as other new recruits but their pay will increase if their businesses succeed, the officials said.
The contract specifies certain goals, such as achieving profitability within three years of their company's creation.
If these goals are not met, the contract will be terminated and they will lose all employment relations with Matsushita.
In the first recruitment round, 30 candidates submitted business plans.
Matsushita offered a contract to one of the applicants, a 22-year-old Keio University senior who will graduate in March. The name of the student was not disclosed.
With funding from Matsushita, the student is expected to start a new business in April aimed at boosting turnout at go-kart races, the officials said.