Job offers to univ. graduates next spring drop to 4-yr low: survey+

TOKYO, April 13 Kyodo - Private-sector job offers to students graduating from universities and graduate schools next March have totaled a four-year low of 725,000, reflecting companies' cautious hiring stance amid the deepening recession, according to a survey released Monday by the Works Institute.

The total is down 23.5 percent from job offers made a year earlier for the
first decrease in seven years, said the research institute which belongs to job
placement magazine publisher Recruit Co.
The percentage fall is comparable to the drop of 25.6 percent in offers to
students graduating in March 1999 amid the so-called ''employment ice age.''
The ratio of job offers to seekers graduating next March comes to 1.62, also a
four-year low, the institute said.
But a Works official said the job offers are ''not so bad,'' attributing the
decrease to excess recruitment of young workers in the previous two years.
The institute surveyed hiring plans at 7,180 companies, with five or more
employees, between Feb. 9 and March 12 and received valid replies from 4,333,
or 60.3 percent, of them. It also compiled data from replies by 7,069
university students and 2,099 graduate school students.
By industry, the ratio of job offers to seekers stands at 0.21 in the financial
sector, the lowest since the survey started with students graduating in March
1996. It also comes to 1.97 in the manufacturing sector, 0.67 in the services
and information sector, and 4.66 in the distribution sector.
==Kyodo