diff --git a/setupext/build_ext.py b/setupext/build_ext.py
index a04b406c5..5016aac67 100644
--- a/setupext/build_ext.py
+++ b/setupext/build_ext.py
@@ -311,8 +311,7 @@ def build_java_ext(self, ext):
             cmd1 = shlex.split('%s -cp "%s" -d "%s" -g:none -source %s -target %s -encoding UTF-8' %
                                (javac, classpath, build_dir, target_version, target_version))
             cmd1.extend(ext.sources)
-            os.makedirs("build/classes", exist_ok=True)
-            os.makedirs("build/classes/META-INF", exist_ok=True)
+            os.makedirs("build/classes/META-INF/versions/0", exist_ok=True)
             self.announce("  %s" % " ".join(cmd1), level=distutils.log.INFO)
             subprocess.check_call(cmd1)