For the first time in Korea, unemployed graduates outnumber those with only a junior high school education.

This reflects growing instability in the labor market in South Korea, as another report shows that nearly a third of people with doctorates in the country are also unemployed.

Students attend the graduation ceremony at Seoul National University, South Korea's top university, in February.

PHOTO: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

The labor market is gloomy.

According to the latest data released by Statistics Korea, there are currently about 3.048 million people aged 15 and older with a university degree or higher who are unemployed and not looking for work. This is higher than the 3.03 million among those who have only completed junior high school, and is the first time that the number of unemployed people with a university degree has exceeded that of those with only a junior high school education, since the agency began keeping statistics.

These people are classified as " economically inactive" meaning they are not working and not looking for work. This group includes those who are pursuing higher education, studying for exams, taking a break or have given up on entering the labor market. Although not included in the general unemployment rate, this figure still clearly reflects the trend and unstable structure in the labor market in the land of kimchi, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper .

Just 10 years ago, the gap between the two groups of "economically inactive" with a bachelor's degree or higher and the group of junior high school graduates was more than 1 million people, but in the opposite direction. This makes the university degree, which used to be a symbol of stable career opportunities, less attractive, in the context that Korea is one of the countries with a university enrollment rate of 76.2%, higher than the average of 38 OECD countries (which only fluctuates from 40-50%).

Behind the above figures is a bleak hiring reality, The Korea Herald commented. According to a survey by the Korea Business Federation released in March, only 60.8% of 500 large enterprises plan to hire this year, the lowest level since 2022. Meanwhile, the manufacturing industry, once a "pillar" of job creation for young people, is also facing a decline, with the employment rate in this industry falling to only 15.2%.

On the other hand, job seekers with university degrees often target high-value industries such as technology and finance. However, growth in these fields is slowing down, pushing many graduates into unemployment. The service industry, which was expected to be a "reservoir" of labor, is also facing a similar situation because labor productivity in this industry is only 39.7% of the manufacturing industry in 2024, according to the Bank of Korea.

Amid rising labor costs and prolonged economic uncertainty, businesses are becoming increasingly cautious in hiring, and young people in South Korea are the first to be affected, local media outlets in the country concluded.

Many PhDs in Korea are also unemployed.

Previously, data from the Korean Statistics Agency released in March also showed that up to 29.6% of 14,442 newly graduated PhDs were labeled "economically inactive" - ​​the highest level since the agency began conducting statistics in 2014. If calculated by age group, among the 537 people under 30 years old with a PhD, 47.7% of them also fell into unemployment.

In terms of gender, among the 6,288 male PhDs, 27.4% are unemployed, while one in three female PhDs is unemployed (about 33% of the 4,154 people). In terms of salary, nearly half of the employed PhDs only earn between 20 million KRW (377 million VND) and 60 million KRW/year (1.1 billion VND). And 14.4% of the PhDs participating in the survey said they earned over 100 million KRW/year (1.8 billion VND).

In terms of field of study, the unemployment rate among PhDs in arts and humanities is up to 40% - the highest among all fields. Some other fields with high unemployment rates in Korea are natural sciences, mathematics, statistics (37.7%); social sciences, journalism and information science (33.1%). In contrast, the unemployment rate among PhDs in health and welfare (20.9%), education (21.7%) and business, administration and law (23.9%) is relatively low.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/lan-dau-tai-han-quoc-cu-nhan-that-nghiep-dong-hon-nguoi-chi-hoc-het-thcs-185250729132030883.htm