Rice fields inside a recruitment termSourced
Japan · Japanese meaning
Aotagai buys the harvest before the rice is ripe
Japanese aotagai refers to reserving a rice harvest while the crop is still green. It also describes securing new graduate recruits early. The recruitment sense carries an image of arranging for future value before the crop matures.
A hiring expression still contains a green rice field.
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あおたがい · Wikimedia contributors
Adapted, summarized and translated from the source. Adapted text is also available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Reviewed: 2026-10-05