Employment rate of prospective university graduates stands at 62.5%.

TOKYO, Nov. 19 Kyodo

The employment rate for students expected to graduate from university next spring stood at 62.5 percent as of Oct. 1, a sharp decline of 7.4 percentage points from a year earlier, a government survey showed Thursday.

The figure is the third lowest ever, behind a figure of 60.2 percent in 2003 and of 61.3 percent in 2004, and reflects the economic slowdown, according to the survey conducted by the ministries of education and labor.

The 7.4 point margin of fall is the biggest year-on-year decline since the ministries began compiling the data in 1996.

The rate of employment for junior college students hit an all-time low of 29.0 percent, representing a 10.4 point decline from a year earlier -- the worst year-on-year fall.

The survey, which covered 62 four-year universities and 20 two-year junior colleges across the country, looked into the percentage of students who have got job offers among all prospective graduates. In Japan, most students graduate from schools in March and the new academic year starts on April 1.

Job-seeking students appeared to have been directly hit by a sharp deterioration in the Japanese economy since autumn 2008, triggered by the collapse of U.S. brokerage Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said an official at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

''The government needs to do its best to help students find jobs,'' the official said.

By gender, the employment rate for male university students went down 6.5 points to 63.3 percent and for female students it dropped 8.5 points to 61.6 percent, the survey showed.

By type of school, the employment rate for students at national and local government-run universities came to 71.3 percent, a slight 1.9 point decline, compared with a rate of 59.6 percent for those at private universities, a sharp 9.4 point fall.

The employment rate for students at privately run women's universities suffered the worst year-on-year setback of 11.7 percent to 57.3 percent.

The employment rate for students majoring in science and technology rose to 68.5 percent, a slight 0.4 point advance, while that for students majoring in law, economics, and other non-natural science fields declined 9.2 points to 61.2 percent.

By area, the figures came to 62.9 percent for university students in the Kanto region centering on Tokyo, down 10.5 points, 65.1 percent for Kinki in and around Osaka, down 7.2 points, 61.4 percent for Chubu centering on Nagoya, down 6.8 points, 59.7 percent for Chugoku-Shikoku, down 7.8 points, 59.7 percent for Kyushu, down 6.0 points, and 60.6 percent for Hokkaido and Tohoku, up 0.3 point.