Japanese start-up helping ‘delinquents’ compete against college graduates for city jobs with new internship
The company Hassyadai has so far helped 100 youth from outside Tokyo to land employment
A Tokyo start-up is generating buzz with a new internship programme to connect non-college graduates – many of whom are considered delinquent youth – with companies in the grips of a deepening labour shortage.
Hassyadai’s project is aimed at helping graduates of high schools and junior high schools outside Tokyo gain access to employment information and job choices, allowing them an opportunity to hold their own against college graduates.
Client companies have given the programme high approval. Since starting the project in the fall of last year, Hassyadai has trained about 100 young jobseekers.
Dubbed the “Yankee internship”, the programme, whose participants range in age from 16 to 22, is unique in that it includes the category of Yankee – Japanese slang for delinquent youth.
Such juveniles are popular as potential workers among companies in need of staff because although they “are wayward they have guts,” Hassyadai says.
“Many of them are actually quite earnest,” said Shigeto Hashimoto, 26, a company director.