Seven & i group welcomes new employees before start of business year
New employees of Seven & i Holdings Co, a Japanese retail giant, participate in a stretching exercise
before a welcome ceremony at a Tokyo hotel on Thursday. Photo: KYODO
TOKYO Retail giant Seven & i Holdings Co welcomed new recruits at a ceremony in Tokyo on Thursday, soon to be followed by many other Japanese companies at the start of the fiscal 2018 business year in April.
The 1,071 new employees joined the group’s 21 units including convenience store operator Seven-Eleven Japan Co and department store operator Sogo & Seibu Co.
Seven & I Holdings President Ryuichi Isaka told the recruits, “All industries are experiencing revolutionary changes with accelerated digital technology innovations. I believe your fresh and flexible minds are our crucial asset to transform the group.”
Representing the new recruits, Hiroka Harada, a 22-year-old worker at supermarket operator Ito-Yokado Co, said, “We promise you that we will look into the future and aggressively take up challenges.”
The company holds a welcoming ceremony in March every year so that new employees can get used to their jobs as soon as possible.
The number of new recruits at the retail group fell from the previous year’s 1,215 as companies including Ito-Yokado, which is shutting unprofitable stores, hired fewer graduates. The holding company plans to recruit 1,130 new graduates in the following fiscal year.
Source:japantoday.com