Recruitment Practices in Times of Demographic Change: The Case of Japan
- 21 February 2025
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in International Journal of Training and Development
Abstract
Due to a shrinking number of employable graduates, companies in industrialised nations have increasingly faced problems in hiring qualified young people. This situation is particularly pronounced in Japan, where companies are competing for the best talents. Based on a multi‐stakeholder perspective, this study examines changes in the Japanese recruitment system from the viewpoint of companies, university career centres and external organisations involved in recruitment. Using in‐depth interviews with these stakeholders, this study investigates how recruitment practices in Japan have changed, which guidelines for recruitment are currently followed by companies, and to what extent traditional recruitment practices still prevail. As the results show, recruiting activities in Japan have accelerated over the last years with companies trying to recruit university students early in their studies to secure qualified talents. This article also discusses the implications of these findings for Japan and other industrialised countries with similar demographic problems.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Adolescents’ Identity Development Predicts the Transition and the Adjustment to Tertiary Education or WorkJournal of Youth and Adolescence, 2023
- Gender diversity management in foreign subsidiaries: A comparative study in Germany and JapanJournal of International Management, 2022
- Applying discourse analysis to Australian national VET policy: more than one, less than manyJournal of Vocational Education & Training, 2022
- Challenges of the Japanese higher education Amidst population decline and globalizationGlobalisation, Societies and Education, 2019
- Japanese Human Resource Management2017
- Problematic transitions from school to employment: freeters and NEETs in Japan and GermanyCompare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 2013
- (Vocational) Education and Social Inequality as Japanese Society Makes the Transition to a ‘Global Society’2012
- From a distance and generalizable to up close and grounded: Reclaiming a place for qualitative methods in international business researchJournal of International Business Studies, 2011
- The transition from education to employment in the context of stratification in Japan – a view from the outsideComparative Education, 2011
- How Institutions Evolve2004