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University students participate in a job seminar featuring nuclear power-related companies.
March 28, 2019
With the nuclear power industry buffeted by headwinds, hiring and training personnel has become an urgent priority.
The suspension of a Hitachi Ltd. project to construct a nuclear power plant in Britain is also casting a shadow. The nuclear power industry, which is responsible for supplying stable electricity, is now struggling to secure human resources.
The job-hunting season for university students planning to graduate in 2020 has begun, and an employment seminar featuring nuclear power-related companies was held in Tokyo on March 3. Major power companies set up booths and energetically touted themselves to attendees, but students’ interest in major power companies that operate nuclear power plants has been somewhat lacking.
“I want to work for a company that deals with radiation measurement and management,” a 21-year-old male student majoring in nuclear power at Tokai University said. “I wasn’t considering a major power company.”
Factors such as the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and delays in the resumption of nuclear power generation have reduced student interest in nuclear power-related companies. In fiscal 2010, before the Fukushima disaster, over 1,200 students attended the seminar, but the number this year was 213, almost 50 fewer than last year.
The Nuclear Human Resource Development Network, composed of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. and other entities, will launch in April a new organization called the “strategic working group to strengthen recruitment and personnel training.”
The organization will aim to strengthen links between industry, academia and the government; provide a venue for the exchange of ideas with the government; and promote human resource development strategies.
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