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The greatest concern for parents of college students is whether their children will find a job when they graduate, but Korea generated only some 50,000 ¡°decent¡± jobs last year, a Chosun Ilbo study finds. If graduates do not find decent employment, it means they will continue to be financially dependent on their parents, and that could eat into their retirement savings. Every year, universities and colleges turn out some 530,000 graduates, but the number of all jobs the private and public sector create stands at no more than 300,000-400,000 a year, condemning at least 100,000 graduates to unemployment.
The number of ¡°decent¡± jobs created by businesses has remained much the same for several years because firms are reluctant to invest and hire college graduates who demand relatively high salaries. ¡°Decent jobs¡± are defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as ¡°productive work under conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity, in which rights are protected and adequate remuneration and social coverage are provided.¡±
¡°Decent jobs should be regular full-time jobs and usually offer income 20 percent higher than average,¡± says Ha Sang-woo, a researcher with the Korea Employers Federation. Considering that new graduates here can earn W21.8 million (US21,800) a year on average, decent jobs in general are those that pay more than W26 million a year. The Chosun Ilbo conducted a survey using this standard of the 500 largest companies, state-run corporations and financial institutions here and found that no more than 50,000 decent jobs were generated last year. In other words, only one out of every 10 college graduates gets a decent job, and competition is truly fierce.
The survey did not include would-be teachers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists or other professionals whose employment is virtually guaranteed right after graduation or those who passed exams to be lawyers, accountants, and tax accountants. But even when they are included, the number of decent jobs would rise to a mere 65,000, experts say.
Another worrying trend is that those who study overseas then rush back to their home country. The days when they enjoyed better treatment than their competitor who studied at home are gone. The number of jobseekers who studied abroad has skyrocketed, and their scarcity value has plummeted apace. Some 200,000 Koreans studied abroad last year, 52,000 of them in the U.S. and 13,000 in China, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development says. In the U.S., there are 47,000 Korean undergraduates and 24,000 postgraduates. Some 90 percent of them come back to Korea after unsuccessful attempts to find jobs overseas.
¡°After Sept. 11, 2002, U.S. companies have dramatically reduced the number of new foreign recruits,¡± says Shin Gil-jong, who graduated from Virginia State University. ¡°It¡¯s almost impossible for Korean students in the U.S. to land a job there.¡± Attending a U.S. university costs W30-70 million a year, and Korean students there have to spend W150-280 million to earn their college degree over four years. Despite the outlay, most return to Korea, where they contribute to the glut of jobseekers competing for decent positions.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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