Why is it getting harder for young people to land jobs?

A job seeker scans listings at the Seoul Western Employment Welfare Plus Center in Mapo District, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

For Son Ga-hyun, job searching in Korea has been a slow grind with little to show for it.

The 26-year-old, who spent nearly two years teaching part time, has been trying for months to break into educational content and textbook development. So far, nothing has clicked.

“There are barely any entry-level openings, and even internships are packed with experienced applicants,” she said. “Even when roles are technically open to both, it feels like I never really have a shot since I have to compete alongside candidates with years of experience.”

In a cooling economy, companies are gravitating toward candidates who can hit the ground running, leaving little room for them to invest time and resources into training.

“So what they really want nowadays are ‘pre-experienced rookies,’” she added. “It’s a system where you can’t build experience because no one gives you the chance in the first place.”

A 24-year-old job seeker surnamed Kim in Busan, preparing to enter publishing, described a similar bind: few openings and even fewer that feel within reach.

“There are far more roles for experienced hires,” he said. “Even when companies are recruiting both, it feels like experience is what really counts, so it’s hard to apply with confidence.”

Headline-grabbing hiring plans by Korea’s conglomerates, which promised 51,600 new recruits this year, offer little comfort to candidates like Son, a history major. Many roles favor skills in artificial intelligence (AI), IT or foreign languages, effectively narrowing the field.

“The bar for entry-level jobs keeps rising, but many candidates don’t have the means to meet it,” she said. “In the end, experienced workers are competing among themselves and newcomers are shut out.”

At the same time, a growing pool of job seekers with advanced degrees is intensifying the already heated competition.

“A lot of applicants, myself included, hesitate to take physically demanding or less desirable jobs after spending years studying,” Son noted. “So when a position that actually fits comes up, everyone rushes in at once.”

Some are opting to remain students a little longer. Several of Son’s peers have finished their coursework but are delaying graduation, a way to avoid the stigma of an extended gap on their resumes.

Son and Kim are among roughly 623,000 job seekers navigating a prolonged hiring slowdown in the country.

According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 29 stood at 7.7 percent in February — the highest in five years and more than double the overall joblessness rate of 3.4 percent.

The number of unemployed young people also rose to 286,000, up 17,000 from a year earlier.

Hong Sok-chul, an economics professor at Seoul National University, said companies’ growing preference for experienced hires reflects both business logic and a changing applicant pool.

“From an employer’s perspective, experienced workers are simply more productive; that demand has always been there,” he said. “What’s changed is the candidates. People no longer expect to stay at one company for life; they keep reapplying to move up. The pool itself has become more experienced, so companies hire accordingly.”

That dynamic is magnified by the structure of Korea’s job market.

Large corporations account for just 14 percent of total employment. Yet, because they remain the most coveted positions with higher pay, the result is a crowded race among qualified applicants competing for a narrow band of “good” jobs, where even entry-level roles increasingly call for experience.

Impact of AI

The widespread use of generative AI is redrawing the contours of entry-level work, particularly in sectors built on routine, standardized tasks. For many job seekers, the shift is subtle, but already underway.

A 2025 report by the Bank of Korea found that in the three years following the debut of ChatGPT, about 211,000 positions for young workers disappeared. Nearly all — 208,000 — were concentrated in heavily AI-exposed fields such as programming and information services.

The dynamic, the report noted, reflects “seniority-biased technological change.” AI tends to supplant junior-level, repetitive work while the productivity of senior employees is complemented — rather than replaced — by AI.

Son sees the shift filtering into everyday conversations.

“My father, who works in real estate, said in passing, ‘These days, AI is better than employees. If you input one thing, it lays everything out for you,’” she said. “And in textbook development, the industry I’m hoping to break into, more companies are starting to incorporate AI into the work.”

The legal field is feeling similar pressure.

“The use of AI has surged, and hiring for in-house counsel has dropped noticeably,” said a Seoul-based law school student. “Senior partners may be safe for now, but prospects for junior lawyers are clearly getting worse.”

Hong pointed out that such a pattern is not entirely new, but its reach is.

“Machines have long replaced routine tasks, but generative AI is now pushing into white-collar work,” he said. “Basic tasks like research or drafting can be handled easily. Even in law, junior lawyers used to spend their time gathering materials. Now AI can do much of that.”

As a result, demand is tilting further toward experience. “Those with deeper, hard-to-replicate expertise are becoming more valued.”