Job offers for high school grads dive

The ratio of high school students guaranteed to have jobs after graduation fell by a record 13.4 points to 37.6 percent as of September, a government survey said Wednesday.

The year-on-year fall is the largest since the survey was begun in 1988, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said. The ratio had been climbing since 2003, when it fell to a record low of 33.4 percent. Then the Great Recession kicked in.

"The figure reflects the trend of more companies trying to cut job offers when they cannot foresee the future amid economic stagnation," a ministry official said.

Job openings for high school graduates plunged 46.7 percent to about 156,000 from a year ago, while the number of job seekers fell 8.7 percent to 176,000.

The ratio of job offers to applicants plunged to 0.89 from 1.52 at the high school level and to 0.28 from 0.55 at the junior high school level.

By prefecture, Okinawa had the lowest percentage of high school job offers, at 8.0 percent, followed by Hokkaido at 14.0 percent and Miyagi at 23.6 percent.