City is told plan to hire students who lost job offers is unequal

OSAKA (Kyodo) The city of Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, has given up on hiring students whose private-sector employment offers were canceled, after the central government noted the plan would be tantamount to an unequal employment opportunity, Ikeda said Wednesday.

Mayor Kaoru Kurata came up with the idea of employing three such students, two for clerical work and another for engineering.

However, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry informed him that, under the principle of equality under the Local Public Service Law, recruitment should not be limited to just students whose job offers were canceled, the officials said.

"I thought it would have created a great trend if many local governments employed such people," Kurata said.