The employment rate for March 2025 graduates of higher educational institutions stood at 98% as of April 1, the second highest on record, Japanese government data showed Friday.
The rate, only 0.1 percentage point shy of the current all-time high, marked a year earlier, tied with those for 2018 and 2020 graduates, according to the data, compiled jointly by the education and labor ministries.
“Now that damage from the COVID crisis is almost gone, companies are eager to hire (fresh graduates),” a labor ministry official said. Continued pay hikes on top of serious manpower shortages were also attributed to the high employment figure.
The data showed more specifically that, of the recent graduates who landed jobs, men accounted for 97.6% and women 98.5% while earners of humanities degrees made up 98.2% and those of science degrees 97.3%.
The two ministries jointly conducted the employment situation survey on 6,250 randomly picked job-seeking students who graduated in March from 112 national and private universities, colleges and other higher educational institutions.
The survey also found that the job placement rate for university graduates in Kanto came highest by region at 98.7%.
