By Kwon Mee-yoo
In the wake of the worldwide economic downturn only half of university graduates here found jobs last year, reflecting the sluggish local job market.
Analysts say that businesses have been reluctant to hire new workers in the midst of an uncertain business outlook.
Additionally, many jobseekers have chosen to remain unemployed and continue to study rather than work for small companies, preventing the youth jobless rate from falling.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology surveyed all 539,996 graduates of 524 higher education institutions who finished school in August 2009 and February 2010 and said 55 percent of them, or 267,003 people, were currently employed, citing the Center for Higher Education Institution Information Disclosure.
Among the four-year universities with more than 3,000 graduates, Seoul National University of Science and Technology topped the list with 69.4 percent, followed by Sungkyunkwan University (65.2 percent), Korea University (64.6 percent) and Yonsei University (64 percent).
This year’s statistics are based on health insurance registration as previous surveys of university graduates were considered less reliable.
The universities called their graduates to find the employment rate and overstated the results by including part-time workers and even temporarily hired graduates.
The employment rate of vocational colleges, which was tallied at 55.6 percent, was higher than the average of four-year universities at 51.9 percent.
Medical schools and pharmacy colleges recorded the highest employment rates.
The most preferred workplaces by college graduates were large enterprises with more than 300 employees or state-owned companies. These companies take up only 7 percent of the total jobs and are reluctant to hire new staff.
Yoo Gyeong-joon, a senior researcher at the Korea Development Institute, attributed the sluggish employment at large companies to rigidness of the Korean labor situation.
“It is difficult to dismiss existing employees at major companies and public enterprises, popular among young job seekers. So they hire fewer new recruits,” Yoo said. “The younger demographic group is the victim of such rigidness.”
He urged the government to come up with measures to encourage the younger generation to choose small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) voluntarily for future employment.
“The government should pay subsidies to youngsters who go to SMEs that might have inferior working environments than conglomerates,” Yoo said. “The subsidies can make the wage level at smaller firms higher.”
Meanwhile, another ministry data showed that nearly 70 percent of students graduating from such high schools that specialize in foreign languages, the sciences or the fine arts, were accepted to universities in Seoul and its adjacent areas.
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