Jobs had been informally offered to 92% of employment-seeking university students in Japan scheduled to graduate this month as of Feb. 1, the labor and education ministries said Tuesday.
The rate at which the students secured job offers remained high due to labor shortages, though it fell from a year earlier in the first decline in five years. The rate was down 0.6 percentage point from a year before, when it hit the highest level seen in records dating back to 2000.
The share of male students who have secured informal job offers came to 90.9%, down 0.7 point, while that of female students declined 0.4 point to 93.4%.
The job offer rate went down 0.8 point to 91.9% for those majoring in humanities and social sciences, but students who are majoring in science saw their rate inch up 0.4 point to 92.8%.
By university location, the job offer rate was highest in the Chugoku and Shikoku region, at 94.2%, up 6.2 points. The rate was also up in the Kinki, Chubu and Kyushu regions.
The rate dropped 2 points to 93.9% in Kanto, which includes Tokyo, and was lowest in the Hokkaido and Tohoku region, at 83.1%, down 8.2 points.
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