---
title: Japan's 3-Year Graduate Turnover, Taken Apart | Nobu Sato
description: About 3 in 10 Japanese graduates leave their first employer within three years, at an even pace each year. The real spread is by industry and company size.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-11/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years-cover-en-2026-10-m.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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[日本語](https://nobusato.jp/ja/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years)[English](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years)[中文](https://nobusato.jp/zh/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years)

Japan by the Numbers

In this article

1. [How the number is counted](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s1)
2. [Not a first-year cliff](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s2)
3. [The spread is by industry and size](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s3)
4. [Which part of the stream matters to a foreign company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s4)

1. [Home](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)
2. [Articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en)
3. [Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/japan-by-the-numbers)

# Japan's 3-Year Graduate Turnover, Taken Apart

Early leaving is not a first-year spike. It runs at the same pace for three years

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents4

1. [How the number is counted](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s1)
2. [Not a first-year cliff](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s2)
3. [The spread is by industry and size](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s3)
4. [Which part of the stream matters to a foreign company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years#s4)

Japan has a phrase for it: *san-nen san-wari*, three in ten within three years. It is the share of new university graduates who leave their first employer within three years of joining. The latest figure from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), released in October 2026, is 31.2% for the class of March 2023, down 2.6 points from the year before. Every autumn the number makes the news, usually as proof that young people lack staying power or that lifetime employment is ending.

If you're hiring in Japan, the headline total won't tell you much. Take it apart and it gets useful. Look at which year people leave in, and which industries and company sizes they leave from.

## How the number is counted

The data comes from employment insurance records. When a workplace enrolls a new hire, it reports a date of birth and a start date. The ministry infers education level from the birth date. Anyone enrolled as a new graduate between March and June 2022 and born on or before April 1, 2000 counts as a university graduate. If that person later leaves that workplace, for another job, for graduate school or to move home, they count as having left.

So the university group includes postgraduates and late graduates. And leaving doesn't mean entering the job market. The number only tells you who left their first workplace. That matters later.

## Not a first-year cliff

Early leaving is not a first-year spike: it runs at the same pace for three years

University graduates leaving their first workplace, by year after graduation (class of 2022, MHLW, Turnover of new graduates)

1. Year 112.1%Class of 2021: 12.3%
2. Year 211.9%Class of 2021: 12.3%
3. Year 39.9%Class of 2021: 10.3%
4. 3-year total33.8%Class of 2021: 34.9%

Dai-ni shinsotsu are not a spring batch. Stay in touch with people in years one to three, all year round.

Figure 1. Of the class of 2022, 12.1% left their first workplace in year one, 11.9% in year two and 9.9% in year three, a published total of 33.8% (parts differ by rounding), so early leaving is a steady stream of about a tenth a year, not a first-year spike.

Early turnover sounds like a first-year problem. It isn't. For the class of 2022, 12.1% left in year one, 11.9% in year two and 9.9% in year three. The year before had the same shape: 12.3%, 12.3% and 10.3%.

That makes the *dai-ni shinsotsu* pool, graduates on their second job within a few years of starting, less a seasonal batch and more a steady stream. In each of the first three years after graduation, roughly the same share leaves the first employer. The most recent first-year rate is 10.1% for the class of 2024. It is drifting down, but the stream has not stopped.

Over a longer view, the three-year rate for university graduates has hovered around 30% for three decades, from just under 29% in low years to nearly 37% in high ones. So the phrase describes something old. It doesn't prove that lifetime employment is suddenly collapsing.

## The spread is by industry and size

For foreign firms, the size of the base matters more than the rate

Three-year turnover of university graduates, by industry (class of 2022, MHLW)

- Hospitality, food

  55.4%
- Personal services

  54.7%
- Education

  44.2%
- Healthcare, welfare

  40.8%
- Retail

  40.4%
- All industriesnational average

  33.8%
- IT, communications

  27.2%
- Finance, insurance

  25.0%
- Manufacturing

  21.2%
- Utilities

  12.4%

IndustryModerate rate, large base, close to foreign B2B roles

The same three years differ more than fourfold by industry. Draw your pool by source, not by the national average.

Figure 2. Three-year turnover for the class of 2022 ranges from 55.4% in hospitality to 12.4% in utilities, more than fourfold, and the useful segment for most foreign firms is the moderate-rate, large-base one, such as IT at 27.2% and finance at 25.0%.

Big workplaces lose fewer graduates, but even at 1,000+ about one in four moves

Three-year turnover of university graduates, by number of staff at the workplace (class of 2022, MHLW)

- Under 5

  57.5%
- 5 to 29

  52.0%
- 30 to 99

  41.9%
- 100 to 499

  33.9%
- 500 to 999

  31.5%
- 1,000+trained by large employers

  27.0%

Lower rates at large employers still mean many people. Don’t mark someone down just for leaving in a year or two.

Figure 3. Three-year turnover for the class of 2022 runs from 57.5% at workplaces with under five staff to 27.0% at those with 1,000 or more, so even at the largest employers about one in four leaves and a short first job is normal.

Split by industry, the gap is wide. Hospitality and food service 55.4%, personal services and entertainment 54.7%, education 44.2%, against manufacturing at 21.2% and utilities at 12.4%. By workplace size, it runs from 57.5% at sites with fewer than five staff to 27.0% at sites with 1,000 or more. The class of 2023 shows the same pattern, with the largest employers down to 24.2%.

The national 30% averages over very different groups. If you want to know whether a candidate's early exit is normal, look at the industry and size they came from.

## Which part of the stream matters to a foreign company

Foreign companies rarely beat large Japanese employers head-on for new graduates. As I wrote in [the post on the 98% graduate employment rate](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-employment-rate?hsLang=en), the annual new-graduate hiring system absorbs most of each cohort first. The second-job pool is the first group to move again after passing through that system.

Not all of that stream matters to you. The highest-turnover sectors supply a lot of people, but most of them are far from a typical foreign B2B role. For most foreign companies the more useful segment is probably the one with moderate rates and a large base. Even at workplaces with 1,000 or more staff, about one in four leave within three years. IT and communications sits at 27.2%, finance and insurance at 25.0%. These people have been through a large company's training and are not yet locked into seniority pay.

For a rough sense of scale, Japan had about 580,000 university graduates in March 2025, and 77% of them went into jobs. If around 30% leave within three years, that is well over a hundred thousand people per cohort. The exact count depends on definitions, but that is the order of magnitude.

On a [talent map](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/talent-map-is-not-a-list?hsLang=en), this is how I'd use it.

- Don't mark a candidate down just for leaving a first employer after a year or two. A tenth of each cohort does that every year. Ask why they left and what they want next.
- Draw the pool by where people come from. The national average won't help you here. Narrow it to the industries and company sizes closest to your role, then look at that segment's rate and base.
- The window is years one to three after graduation, and it is open all year. Plan for year-round contact rather than a single April intake.

That the movers are mostly young also matches what the [job-change rate data](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-job-change-rate?hsLang=en) shows.

The data has limits. Education is inferred from birth dates, not records. Leaving also includes graduate school and moves home, so the number who actually enter the mid-career market is smaller.

The year-by-year split is from the class of 2022, published in 2025. For the class of 2023 I could only confirm the total and the main industry and size figures, so I can't yet say whether the structure has shifted. That needs the detailed tables.

And the count is by workplace. The documents do not say how transfers within a group or between sites are treated.

Think of the second-job candidates you met recently. Which industries did most of them come from?

Sources

- [MHLW, Turnover of new graduates (class of March 2022), press release (Japanese)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/0000177553_00010.html)
- [MHLW, Annex 1: three-year turnover by education level over time, split by year one, two and three](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11805001/001318971.pdf)
- [MHLW, Annex 3: university graduates by industry and workplace size](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11805001/001318973.pdf)
- [MHLW, Data source and calculation method](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11805001/001318979.pdf)
- [Kyodo News via Daily Sports, October 23, 2026: class of March 2023 at 31.2%, 1,000+ staff at 24.2%](https://www.daily.co.jp/society/national/2026/10/23/0020959011.shtml)
- [MEXT, School Basic Survey FY2025: 584,304 university graduates, 77.0% employed](https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20260327-mxt_chousa01-000048552_10.pdf)

On how the graduate intake itself began narrowing in 2026, and what that does to mid-career prices, see [Japan Hires Fewer Graduates. Mid-Career Talent Gets Pricier](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-hiring-cuts-ai?hsLang=en). Separate from who actually leaves, new hires were asked how long they expect to stay; only 22.4% said until retirement ([Only 22% of Japan's New Hires Plan to Stay Until Retirement](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/new-hires-stay-until-retirement-22-percent?hsLang=en)).

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en)

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