Jobless university graduates surpass 500,000
By Lee Kyung-min
More than half a million young people with bachelor’s degrees remain jobless in the first quarter, the highest number since the government revised its methods on collecting such data in 2000, a study showed Sunday.
According to Statistics Korea, the number of unemployed people stood at 1.17 million in the first quarter, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier.
The number of jobless university graduates increased 9.2 percent year-on-year to 543,000 over the same period, accounting for almost half of the jobless people.
The increase is attributable to highly educated young adults seeking jobs only at large conglomerates that provide high-paying, full-time jobs with generous employee benefits, according to experts.
Another factor is young adults seeking to become public servants guaranteeing job security and post-retirement social security benefits.
On the other hand, there have been layoffs and hiring freezes in the manufacturing sector amid the protracted economic slump including shipbuilding, steel manufacturing and engineering, which traditionally offered high wages and generous benefits.
Meanwhile, the number of economically inactive people, meaning those aged 15 and over who did not seek employment over the last few weeks, stood at 16.55 million in the first quarter from the previous year. Of them, 352,800 were university graduates.
These “economically inactive people,” are not classified as unemployed, but are a major part of unemployment.
The increase is likely to continue as most university graduates refuse to take jobs at small- and medium-sized firms but only seek jobs at large conglomerates, according to Park Jin-hee, a scholar at the Korea Employment Information Service.
“This trend is explained by what analysts call a mismatch between the needs and expectations of the employers and jobseekers,” Park said.
“Rather than taking jobs at companies that don’t meet their satisfaction and ending up regretting getting them in the first place, most of the graduates spend time raising their profiles on their resumes by doing internships at companies or obtaining licenses for skilled tasks,” she said.
Those who wish to avoid stress altogether from the endless competition even after landing a job turn to becoming mid- to low-level public servants.
According to the Ministry of Personnel Management, 228,368 people applied for the state-administered exam to become the lowest level (Level 9) public servant up 7,000 than the previous year. It plans to have 4,910 openings. The competition rate is 46.5 to 1.
Last year, 66,712 people applied for the exam to become mid-level (Level 7) that had 870 openings, marking the competition rate at 76.1 to 1.
According to an official at the Korea Development Institute, universities should increase their efforts to produce more qualified and skilled human resources.
“As the economy shows no signs of improving anytime soon, it is the average-level university graduates who will have a hard time finding a quality job. The universities should strengthen curricula to better educate students to put into workforce,” he added.