Simultaneous Recruitment of New Graduates (SRoNG)

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic account of simultaneous recruitment of new graduates (SRoNG), the predominant hiring practice of big companies in Japan. The authors characterise SRoNG as macro-level coordination in the process of new graduate recruitment between companies and universities, along with homogeneous hiring conditions offered by individual firms, consisting of same initial salaries, initial internal vocational training, and absence of job specification. The paper further provides a historical account of SRoNG’s emergence, tracing it back to early-modern government structures, education expansion, wage control efforts, and the system’s expansion and establishment as a predominant institution. Finally the paper focuses on SRoNG’s more recent empirical evolution. The main business association, Keidanren, proposed to abandon the practice in the wake of intensified competition with foreign multinationals in the recruitment of new graduates. While there are noteworthy ongoing changes, the authors suggest that SRoNG is unlikely to suffer more than a partial and minor abandonment.