Why Japan’s ‘shūkatsu’ job-seeking system is changing www.bbc.com

This ritual is part of a year-long hiring process in their penultimate year of university: the season of ‘shūshoku katsudō’ (job-hunting activity).
It’s known as ‘shūkatsu’ for short, when third-year students drop classes in order to attend career seminars organised by universities.
This system was created in 1953 by Keidanren – Japan’s leading business lobby, comprising more than 1,300 major Japanese corporations and 100 group industries.
Due to labour shortages during Japan’s post-war period of rapid economic growth, the hunt for college graduates heated up.
The shūkatsu system offered lifetime employment to new graduates who, in turn, provided security and status for major Japanese firms.