The Employment Promotion Center (General Manager, Mr. Koukichi Natsume) of the Japan Productivity Center (President, Mr. Tsuneaki Taniguchi) and the Junior Executive Council of Japan (President, Mr. Tsunehiro Otsuka) announced the result of 2010 Survey on Perception of Work conducted to newly recruited employees. This survey has been conducted since 1965 and is the longest running survey of its kind. Below is the highlight of the 2010 survey.

The percentage of those who said they could join the companies of their first choice declined from 62.3% last year to 55.2% this year, indicating the difficulties that this year's job seekers may have encountered.

The most common criterion to select the company to join was "job that matches with one's skill/personality" at 34.8%. Other popular criterion was "interesting job" at 24.8%. Both criteria were about the interest and skill of recruits themselves. The "potential of the company," which was the top choice during 1970s, was down to 8.3%. Of top 4 criteria, those who chose "job that matches with one's skill/personality" and "interesting job" were increasing while "job that develops skill" and "potential of the company" were decreasing.

Regarding the priority between work and life, majority (82.8%) responded that they wanted to "reconcile work and life," outstripping those who said "work-oriented" (9.2%) and "life-oriented" (7.9%)

Regarding the choice between dating and overtime work, 85.3% said they would "give up date and do the work," rather than "decline overtime and go dating" (14.2%.) On the gender difference, 88.8% of women said that they would "give up date and do the work" while only 81.9% of men said the same.

Regarding the source of information used in seeking jobs, "company website" had been the top choice the past two years, but this year "company job fair" became the most popular source (90.3%).