The year-on-year fall is the largest since the survey started in 1988, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. After falling to a record-low 33.4 percent for the graduates in 2003, the ratio continued rising, but it turned downward this year for the first time since then.

"The figure reflects the trend that more companies are trying to cut job offers when they cannot foresee the future course amid economic stagnation," a ministry official said.

The job openings for high school graduates totaled about 156,000, down 46.7 percent from a year earlier, while the number of job seekers was 176,000, down 8.7 percent.

The ratio of job offers to applicants plunged to 0.89 from 1.52 last year at the high school level, and it dropped in the junior high school level to 0.28 from 0.55.

By prefecture, Okinawa had the lowest percentage of high school students given job offers at 8.0 percent, followed by Hokkaido at 14.0 percent and Miyagi at 23.6 percent.

Mie Prefecture had the highest at 57.7 percent, followed by Fukui at 56.0 percent and Aichi at 55.7 percent, the survey showed.