More Young Educated People Unemployed

Unemployment is rising among highly educated young people in Korea. Korea has the most highly educated young workers in the OECD, but unemployment in that demographic rose from five percent to 5.7 percent from 2009 to 2019.

By contrast, unemployment in the 25-34 age group in the whole of the OECD improved from 6.1 percent to 5.3 percent.

The figures come from a study by the Korea Economic Research Institute.

Yet even as employment fell, the proportion of young Koreans in higher education rose 9.2 percentage points from 60.6 percent to 69.8 percent over the decade, compared to the OECD average of 8.6 points.

Employment among university graduates in Korea edged up from 73.9 percent to 76.4 percent, but the country's ranking among the 35 OECD members in that respect rose only from dead last to 33rd.

KERI blamed an imbalance in supply and demand. Choo Kwang-ho at KERI said, "If unemployment among university graduates does not improve, we could suffer a brain drain. Red tape needs to be eased further in order to create an environment that boosts demand for highly educated young workers."