HUNTING DIFFICULT FOR WOMEN IN JAPAN
Women college graduates in Japan face dismal job prospects, according to official reports. Approximately 68,000 coeds and stud= ents of women's colleges will graduate next year and 50,000 of them plan to hunt for jobs.
But the prospective number of jobs open to college graduates next year is expected to be only one-half of the present year, a figure already seriously affected by the depression. Of next year's jobs, only about one per cent will be open to women.
Kyoto University, Osaka University and Osaka City University, each of which have about 100 coeds, report that none of them have had jobs promised to them.
Of the 70 coeds at Kansai University, only two are sure of jobs next spring when they graduate.
At Waseda University less than 20 out of 800 coeds have secured -promises of Jobs after they graduate.
In Tokyo, a publishing firm gave examinations to 1,100 students, including 500 coeds, but only six or seven were accepted for jobs, Of these only one was a woman.
Business firms give various shamefaced reasons for not wanting to hire graduating women students. But a woman employed by an insurance firm indicated the real reason:
"Feudalism is still deep-rooted in the minds of employers here, Even if they find women competent, they still refuse to give them promotion and equal chance with men."
But women in Japan are turning toward new methods of struggle. Home Affairs Minister Tadanori Nagayama reported to the cabinet, for instance, that at the giant demonstration staged in Harumi against the Japan=South