Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/47730

KEYWORDS : Recruitment Practices;Personnel Management;Japanese-Style Management

Over the past decade, Japanese companies have had to reexamine their personnel management strategies to deal with staffing issues and a rapidly changing economic environment. Furthermore, the global financial crisis in the fall of 2008 forced many Japanese companies to adapt their personnel management practices. Although recruitment is only one part of the personnel management system, it provides insight into understanding the overall management system. Past research has indicated that Japanese company recruitment practices have been resistant to change. The purpose of this paper is to examine recent recruitment practices to determine whether this is still the case. This paper focused on recruitment practices in large Japanese companies from 2006-2011. Information was obtained using company data, newspaper articles, company surveys, and government related data such as white papers. It was found that many large companies have adapted recruitment practices in varying degrees to deal with the changing economic environment. These changes include varying the number of hires, diversifying hiring conditions, extending the recruitment schedule, and dealing with labor turnover issues. The implications of these changes and the impact on companies and university students are then discussed.