Factors of Concentration of Industrial Engineers in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

Abstract

In Japan, high-quality industrial engineers are concentrated in metropolitan areas. This is a reflection of the spatial division of labor between the metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. The aim of this paper is to examine the interrelationship between the concentration of industrial engineers and the characteristics of the labor market for university graduates who major in engineering.In the second part of the paper, using a directory to locate companies which have hired university graduates, the degree of concentration of employment in the Tokyo metropolitan area is compared among faculty types. The directory covers about 80 percent of three hundred thousand university graduates who have entered the labor market in 2000. Most students who graduate from departments of education, which are spread all over the nation, find a job in the Prefecture where their university is located. About 40 percent of graduates from departments of both humanities and social science, which are agglomerated in the Tokyo metropolitan area, find a job in a company based in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The location of departments of engineering, however, are more dispersed over the nation than either humanities or social science, yet over 40 percent of students are employed in a company which has its headquarters in the Tokyo metropolitan area. It is noteworthy that graduates from departments of engineering that are located in the non-metropolitan area still have a tendency to find a job in the Tokyo metropolitan area, while the demand for industrial engineers is expanding in non-metropolitan areas.The third part of the paper analyzes the job assignment process of students who major in mechanical engineering at a university in the Kyushu area. Most students choose to apply to a company in response to job-offer cards sent by the companies, although students can receive only one nomination from their university as a job applicant to the company. These companies have work places primarily in the Tokyo metropolitan area. It is a condition that information on employment opportunities is centralized at the employment section for student established in the department in order to reduce the cost of search and contact to both students and companies and to overcome the spatial gap between them. The relationship of trust between departments and companies, which has been established by the continual employment of alumni and by visits of recruiters to the department, is highly valued. Thus, once students receive a notification of employment by nomination, they are not allowed to reject it to find another job near the university for themselves. These features of the job-assignment process facilitate the concentration of high-quality industrial engineers in the Tokyo metropolitan area.