SEOUL/TOKYO – When Japanese entrepreneur Moe Kasugai was a student at Seoul’s Yonsei University, she was struck by how some of the prestigious South Korean college’s brightest graduates struggled to land a job.

So in 2019 she launched a service to connect Korean job seekers with Japanese employers.

“I was surprised that they couldn’t find a job because they were so smart,” the 35-year-old said in Seoul at a two-day job fair organized by Korec, her startup, last month. “Many could speak Japanese, so I thought it might be better for them to go to Japan. I wanted to help.”