Prime Minister Naoto Kan attended the second meeting of the Task Force Team for the Employment of New Graduates at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, emergency measures related to the employment of new graduates were decided.

The Prime Minister said in his address, "I believe that above all, employment will be the breakthrough for Japan's current standstill. First, employment, second, employment, and third, employment. Following this, I would like to go on to economic development and further on to social stability, restored fiscal health, and enriched social security.

What you have compiled today is an extremely focused and comprehensive program, based on the output of the Headquarters for Emergency Employment Measures, and incorporating the several observation visits we have made up until now.
From the doubling of the number of career counselors at universities and job supports in order to match 20,000 people with jobs, focused activities for 10,000 small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a threefold increase of internship trial employment, to the nationwide expansion of the job park method utilized in Kyoto, which I recently visited, each of these measures are very specific. Since the situation does not allow a second to be lost, I would like to ask you to take action so that all of these measures will be set into motion by early September in coordination with economic measures.
There are many issues such as the strengthening of the yen and the employment issue faced by new graduates. I would like to ask you to act swiftly, creating a framework, not of one-off measures, but rather with the effects reviewed so that they will continue into the future."