Students crowd a job fair at Yonsei University in Seoul, on Sept. 5, 2019. (image: Yonsei University)
SEOUL, Feb. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — With the job outlook increasingly bleak for young Koreans, more than half of new job seekers are willing to accept an offer of employment even if they are not regular workers or even non-regular workers such as interns or contract workers.
According to the survey of 2,816 job seekers conducted by part-time job portal Albamon, 64.9 percent of the respondents said that if there is a possibility to be switched to a regular position, it is okay to be hired as a temporary worker, such as an interns or contract worker.
This is due to the fact that 45.3 percent of job seekers think they are “more anxious than confident that they can get a job.”
In particular, 48.2 percent of female job seekers felt more insecure than their male counterparts, at 40.9 percent.
Furthermore, high school graduates, who accounted for 48.3 percent, felt insecure of their future the most, while only 37.8 percent of postgraduate job seekers were worried.
In fact, 51.3 percent of job seekers were looking for jobs in small and medium-sized companies, followed by 24.7 percent for state-run companies and 18.6 percent for large companies.
In terms of final education, job seekers with two and three-year college degrees (68.9 percent) and high school graduates (68.8 percent) had the most preparation for employment at small and medium-sized enterprises, while graduate job seekers tended to prepare for employment at state-owned companies (47.3 percent).
Meanwhile, 26.7 percent spent between 1-3 million won (US$823-2,470) to prepare for a job in the past year, while 26.6 percent spent between 500,000 won and 1 million won.
By academic background, 39.5 percent of high school graduates said they spent between 300,000-500,000 won on average, while 30 percent of two and three-year college graduates said they spent between 500,000 won and 1 million won.
Job seekers who graduated four-year colleges showed the difference in consumption with 33.1 percent of them spending between 1-3 million won.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
