Career counseling in Japan: Today and in the future

Career Development Quarterly, March, 2002 by Ryoji Tatsuno

The number of young people who postpone their career decision is increasing in Japan, as is the high unemployment rate. In companies, on the other hand, the traditional seniority system and lifetime employment, which once provided job security for corporate employees, began to collapse. Employees' work ethics and corporate attitudes toward workers have also changed. Under such circumstances, career counseling is the focus of public attention. In this article written in 1999, the author examines some problems in Japan's career counseling, compared with career counseling in the U.S., and discusses which course Japan's career counseling should take to cope with dramatic social changes.

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One of the most noteworthy phenomena in the recent Japanese labor market is a rapid increase in unemployment. The unemployment rate rose to 3.4% in 1997,4.1% in 1998, and that of the male population hit a postwar record high of 5%. However, this is not only because of current economic recession; changes in employees' work value and companies' attitudes toward human resources also have a profound influence.

Career Counseling in Schools

Th number of voluntary young unemployed (those who leave the company of their own free will) has been constantly increasing since the early 1990s. Some of the reasons can be found in the current job placement system in schools as well as the career counseling system in companies. First, let's look at the job placement system in schools.

When the Management and Coordination Agency (1998) asked school graduates why they chose their job, 29.8% of them said, "because the placement officer recommended [it]," which ranked the highest among all the reasons. This indicates that job placement officers' advice has a strong influence over students' job choice in Japan.

According to the research conducted by Research Institute of Employment and Vocation (1989), 59.6% of high school graduates in Japan chose the job that teachers recommended to them, compared with 46.6% in the U.S. and 36.2% in the U.K. In addition, companies' recruiting activities are also affected because job offers from companies are screened by each high school beforehand.

Career Counseling in High Schools

Then, how does career counseling work in high schools in Japan? The Academy of Vocational Guidance in Schools (2000) labeled vocational guidance in Japanese high schools as the "department store-type" (pp. 22-25) because teachers deal with students' academic, vocational, and school-life problems through classroom management. This is different from the "professional-type" seen in the U.S. and Canada, where well-trained and qualified counselors cope with each student's needs. In Japan, there are no professional career counselors in high schools.

Both types have their own advantages, and Japan could make the best use of "department store-type guidance." In reality, however, having scarce knowledge of career counseling, teachers just dictate to students what they should do, and students have no choice but to obey their teachers. For this reason, teachers need to have sufficient counseling competencies, or professional counselors should be provided. In any case, the government needs to take the initiative and come up with effective measures.

Job Placement in Universities

For the past 5 years, the opening-to-application ratio in Japan has been less than 1.0. Although the tight labor market continues, the number of young people who resign within 3 years of initial employment keeps rising. Job placement officers in schools are struggling to tackle this problem.

Now let's look at the traditional course guidance conducted in universities in Japan. Employment guidance begins in summer or autumn of the 3rd year of their enrollment. In a lecture, placement officers give students a general picture of the world of work, the current employment situation, and how to plan their job-hunting activities. The second employment guidance takes place from summer to the end of the year. Then students submit registration cards to the job placement department, listen to the job-hunting experiences from senior graduates, and take aptitude tests and self-recognition tests. From January through April of the following year, they attend seminars to study industry and business, learn to write an impressive resume, and simulate job interviews. Finally, students get unofficial assurance of employment from spring to summer of their final school year (in Japan, the school year begins in April), well in advance of graduation.

Career Education

As previously discussed, there is no clear definition for "career education" in Japan. In the U.S., in his speech at the National Assembly of the Junior High School Principals in 1971, Sidney P. Marland Jr., the former U.S. federal secretary of education, emphasized the importance of career education in schools. He maintained that it was imperative to establish a stronger education system by consolidating the academic course and the vocational course. This prompted the Federal Education Agency to design a new career education model. In Japan, on the other hand, there is a tendency to draw a line between the academic course and the vocational course. This may be one of the factors that delays the introduction of career counseling into the university education system.