South Korean young adults taking longer to find jobs

New data has found that nearly 360,000 young adults in South Korea spent more than three years in landing their first job.
By: | October 21, 2022
Topics: News | Recruitment | South Korea

That is according to an analysis of microdata collected by the Korean Statistical Information Service and the Yonhap News Agency, which was unveiled recently.

The data found that among employed people aged between 15 and 29 in the first half of this year, 358,000 had spent more than three years securing their first job. That is up some 35,000 from the same period last year.  

According to the data, it took 10.8 months on average for people in that age group to land their first job. That is longer than the 10 months posted in 2020 and 10.1 months posted in 2021.  

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The data also found that the number of young adults who remain at home after failing to get a job for more than three years reached 84,000. The figure rose to 126,000 when those aged 30 to 34 were included.

The number of employed young people aged 15-29 reached 4.1 million in May, up 196,000 from a year earlier, according to data released by Statistics Korea. Their employment rate came to 47.8%, up 3.4 percentage points from a year earlier.