High School Graduates Contribute to Companies Amid Labor Shortages; Companies Look Beyond Academic Background

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:26 JST, October 5, 2024

As competition intensifies to acquire young workers amid Japan’s labor crunch, companies have been expanding the opportunities available for high school graduates, including by appointing them to managerial positions from a young age.

The ratio of job openings to high school students who will graduate in spring is expected to reach a record high.

Job applications from high school students who are set to graduate in 2025 officially began being accepted in July, while interviews and other stages of the selection processes have been underway since September.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry announced in September that the job openings-to-applicants ratio had reached a record high of 3.70-to-1 as of the end of July. The number of job openings at large companies — those with 1,000 or more employees — increased by 6.4% year over year, the highest rate of increase on record, according to the ministry.

“Due to the labor shortage, it’s becoming more difficult to recruit university graduates, and the average age of the workforce is increasing,” said an official of an Osaka-based recruitment agency, Jinjib Co.

“Workers who start their careers after graduating high school have more years in their 20s in which to contribute to their workplace. Demand for that kind of worker is growing, especially in the service and manufacturing industries,” the official said.

A 23-year-old manager of a Sushiro’s Jimokuji branch in Ama, Aichi Prefecture, started her career after graduating from high school in the spring of 2020.

She had been working part-time at the conveyor-belt sushi franchise when she was in her first year of high school. “I liked the atmosphere of the workplace because everyone worked together as one, and I wanted to start working there full-time quickly,” she said, speaking about when she applied for the full-time position.

In addition to the store, she worked at the Sushiro stall at the Dubai Expo in 2021 and gained other experience and in September 2022 was promoted to branch manager at the age of 21. At the Jimokuji branch, where she is in her third manager position, she leads a team of about 80 employees, from high school students to people in their 60s.

“She is so much younger than me that she could be my child, but she has a lot of experience and gives good instructions,” a 46-year-old part-time worker said.

The average annual income of a Sushiro branch manager is ¥6.21 million. There are about 650 Sushiro branches nationwide, and about 20% of managers are in their 20s.

“Academic background is not a factor in our hiring process, and there is no difference in wages or promotions between high school graduates and university graduates. High school graduates can be promoted at a young age due to their longer work experience,” said an official from Sushiro’s parent company, Food & Life Companies Ltd.

Runa Suzuki, 21, works for Mercury Inc., a human resources service company in Tokyo. She took on a managerial role supervising eight sales staff at a consumer electronics store in Aichi Prefecture in April, two years after joining the company, which she did following graduation from high school.

Seven out of eight staff members at her company are university graduates. However, she says she has never been treated as someone who is incapable just because she is a high school graduate. “It’s a job that suits my temperament because I’m judged on my results,” she said.

In most prefectures, arrangements have been made between the board of education and local economic organizations regarding job hunting for high school students.

The current practice is to limit students to applying to only one company at a time. On the one hand, the practice expedites the recruitment and job-hunting processes. On the other hand, the 37% job turnover rate within three years of graduation in 2020 is also said to be an outcome of the practice.

“The current job-hunting system is inadequate because it does not allow students to compare and choose companies,” said Shoto Furuya, a researcher at Recruit Works Institute. “Schools should provide career education that involves local businesses. If businesses also want diversity in the workplace, they need a system of human resource development in which treatment and promotion are not based solely on academic background.”