Language skill-shy job-hunting grads falling prey

University and college students are increasingly falling prey to language and other vocational schools that are cashing in on their employment fears amid the economic slump, the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan said Wednesday.

Such schools pressure students into taking courses by touting they are useful for job-hunting and by claiming the students would be unable to find work otherwise, the NCAC said.

Local consumer advice centers nationwide said that between fiscal 2004 and fiscal 2008 there has been a four-fold increase in the number of such cases they have been asked to advise on — 223 in fiscal 2008 — and the number is expected to rise in fiscal 2009, which began in April, it said.

In one case, a 21-year-old university student in Aichi Prefecture signed a contract for approximately ¥600,000 after being approached on two occasions to enroll in an English conversation class after April.

The language school agent, who obtained the student's phone number from a questionnaire he responded to in April after attending a company recruitment orientation, initially invited him to hear "things useful for job-hunting."