List of Attractive Regional “Companies Continuing to Recruit New Graduates” Announced

1. Current situations surrounding students seeking employment

As Japanese companies are advancing their recruiting activities of new graduates in FY2020, some companies have postponed or canceled recruiting fairs or stopped recruiting activities due to the novel coronavirus disease. These situations are affecting students seeking employment. However, METI considers that meticulous measures for supporting such students in finding employment have potential, despite the recent jobs-to-applicants ratio for university graduates being lower than that of the previous year.

2. Overview of the support measure

In light of such situations, on October 27, 2020, the government of Japan requested, in joint name with the Minister for Promoting Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, and the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, economic associations to recruit students who will graduate from schools at the end of FY2020 or FY2021 from mid-to-long term standpoints.

Against this backdrop, METI selected 503 mid-ranking and SMEs in regions, which are companies that will continue to recruit new graduates in FY2020. There are three types of companies* that METI has approved: “Companies Driving Regional Futures,” which are companies driving Japanese regional economies, “Global Niche Top Companies,” which are those playing a leading role worldwide, and “Companies Engaging in Diversity Management,” which are those encouraging a variety of human resources to play a leading role. It hereby publishes the selected companies as “Companies Continuing to Recruit New Graduates.”

Breakdown of the number of companies continuing to recruit new graduates by region

Hokkaido and Tohoku	Kanto	Chubu	Kinki	Chugoku	Shikoku	Kyushu and Okinawa
90 companies	98	101	77	47	33	57

METI will provide information on these companies through career centers in universities, contact counters for supporting new graduates opened in Public Employment Security Offices (commonly called “Hello Work”) and other occasions. Through this effort, METI will strive to further expand matching opportunities between new graduates and companies.

*Note: METI has been selecting and publishing outstanding companies under three types of programs: “Companies Driving Regional Future,” in which companies having potential for playing a central role in driving regional economies are selected; “Global Niche Top Companies,” in which excellent companies that have succeed in global markets in niche fields or that have been developing businesses of parts or raw materials, whose importance is increasing in terms of supply chains, are selected; and “Companies Engaging in Diversity Management,” in which leading companies connecting diversity management promotion efforts to their business achievements are selected.

Related Material:

• List of Companies Continuing to Recruit New Graduates (in Japanese)(PDF:849KB)

Division in Charge

Human Resources Policy Office, Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau