College graduates account for more than half of unemployed youths in Korea

[Photo by Kim Ho-young]

More than half of the 1.26 million unemployed youths are college graduates who have been unable to find a job after graduation, a survey showed Sunday.

According to a survey by Statistics Korea on Sunday, the number of university graduates out of the total youth population of 8.41 million aged between 15 and 29 stood at 4.52 million as of May.

Of them, 1.26 million were unemployed. More than half, or 53.8 percent, of the unemployed graduates were college graduates, while 46.2 percent had a high school diploma or less.

The problem is that many young adults have given up seeking jobs as they struggle to find one. One in four unemployed graduates were not looking for a job at all.

Of the 36.2 percent who said they attended courses or libraries to prepare for a job, 61.2 percent were four-year college graduates.

The survey showed that it took an average of 10.4 months to land the first job after graduation. The number of young people who spent more than three years to get their first job stood at 324,000, accounting for 8.4 percent.

The total number of young adults who had job experience after graduation was 3.95 million, of which 3.87 million were wage earners in their first job.

Even if they found a job, the average duration of their first job was only one year and six months. The most common reason for leaving the workforce was dissatisfaction with working conditions such as compensation and working hours, according to 45.9 percent of the respondents, followed by contract termination at 14.7 percent, and personal reasons such as health and marriage at 14.6 percent.