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The story
A survey by Teikoku Databank found that 58.5% of companies in Yamagata Prefecture have “no plans” to hire high school graduates next spring. The figure was striking enough that Governor Mieko Yoshimura called it “a matter of concern,” but 5ch users were split on how to read it. Some argued “wages are too low, so no one applies,” while others insisted just as firmly that “high schoolers themselves aren’t interested in local companies and want to head to the city.” The fact that Sendai is within commuting distance — about an hour away from Yamagata by the Senzan Line or highway bus — also became a talking point, with much of the discussion centering on the choice between staying local or moving to Sendai.
A survey by the private credit research firm Teikoku Databank found that 58.5% of companies in Yamagata Prefecture said they have “no plans” to hire high school graduates next spring. Various factors are thought to be behind this, including rising university enrollment rates and companies’ name recognition. Governor Mieko Yoshimura has said she is “concerned and worried,” noting the situation could contribute both to the loss of talent who should shape the prefecture’s future and to population decline.
■ Applicant Numbers, Company Recognition “Lacking”
“The fact that 58.5% of companies have no plans to hire high school graduates strikes me as a shocking situation. I want to hear more details from the people in charge, consider what measures can be taken, and work on creating an environment where businesses can grow.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
"Nobody applies even when we recruit"
is the nursing-care industry's go-to line
which is exactly why they end up scraping the bottom of the barrel
What they actually want is experienced hires who can contribute from day one
there's just way too little room for companies to grow in Yamagata
With small/mid-size companies, you can't even tell how they're really doing, so they might fold anyway
And if business IS good, the boss's son or daughter is working there
acting all high and mighty despite being nothing but a rich kid
so people steer clear
It's a small rural community, so you've probably already heard bad rumors
about the place from neighbors or relatives who worked there
the real story is that high schoolers aren't interested in local companies to begin with, so job postings get zero applicants and are a waste of money; they'd rather go for flashier, better-paying jobs
Isn't it simply because the pay is low?
How much do they even pay?
The JR Senzan Line runs between Yamagata and Sendai about once an hour, covering the trip in just over an hour
but highway buses to Sendai also run frequently and take roughly an hour too
I mean, even around Tokyo a one-hour commute is pretty normal
There was even a joke that "the Yamagata Bank ATM with the most withdrawals is the Kokubuncho branch in Sendai" (Kokubuncho being Sendai's big nightlife district)
So you can totally commute!
Get a job in Sendai and just keep living with your parents — easy mode
Even those pay badly these days
For civil servants, the pay gap between high-school and university grads on the salary scale just keeps widening, so even a bottom-tier ("F-rank") university degree pays off
You'd be better off working straight out of high school than saddling yourself with debt dressed up as a "scholarship"
Even a dumb person
doesn't want to work for peanuts under some idiot rich-kid heir of a boss who ignores labor law
Just like stamping out bottom-tier ("F-rank") universities, I'd love to see these law-breaking rich-kid-heir bosses weeded out too lol
but if they were actually making that much money
they'd have paid more from the start
That's why foreign workers are the only ones they can rely on
I'm so tired of that "rely on foreigners" line
With the yen this weak, even foreign workers
are now cutting their losses on these law-breaking, rich-kid-run companies
these days foreign workers would rather stay in their home country or skip Japan entirely and work in the West
not with the exchange rate the way it is now
Take-home: ¥150,000
Days off: 90 a year
"Nobody applies even when we post the job…"
That's not a job posting, that's a cry for help
There's no way it's really only 90 days off
or are you just fishing for someone to call that out?
That's plenty to live on in Yamagata
Re: #172
Then you might as well just get a job in Sendai (that's Miyagi Prefecture) instead
if a bit over an hour's commute gets you a decent salary
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Underlying this is Japan’s broader demographic problem: the working-age population is shrinking by roughly 600,000 people a year nationwide. Local high-school hiring is especially sensitive to rising university enrollment rates and population concentration in cities, and that tendency shows up strongly in prefectures like Yamagata that sit about an hour from a major city like Sendai. The thread split between those blaming low wages and those blaming high schoolers’ own preference for city life and supposedly unrealistic expectations about treatment — neither side’s claim is backed by anything beyond the survey’s bare numbers; both remain speculation. It’s also easy to overlook that “no plans to hire” in the article doesn’t necessarily mean a company is struggling — it can just as easily reflect a business judgment that the applicants likely to come in wouldn’t justify the cost of hiring.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Even the Governor Was “Shocked” — Nearly 60% of Yamagata Companies Have No Plans to Hire High Schoolers, “Nobody Applies Even When We Post the Job”“.
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