This file photo taken Aug. 21, 2023, shows jobseekers attending a job fair in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 1.26 million young people remained unemployed after completing their studies, and it took more than 10 months for youths to get their first job after graduation on average, data showed Sunday.
Of the 8.42 million people aged 15-29, 4.52 million had graduated from middle school, high school or college as of May, and 1.26 million of them did not have a job, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.
Some 52.86 percent of the unemployed youths were college graduates, and about 1 percent, or about 12,000 people, had master’s or doctorate degrees, the data showed.
More than 36 percent of the unemployed young people said they were studying to land a job, while 25.4 percent said they weren’t making any efforts to find employment, the agency said.
On average, it took 10.4 months for young people to be employed after graduation, and 15.3 percent, or 591,000 people, said they spent more than two years after graduation preparing for a job, the agency said.
In July, South Korea’s jobless rate came to a record low level of 2.7 percent, and the number of employed people rose more than 200,000 on-year to 28.68 million.
But jobs for people in their 20s and 40s marked an on-year drop, while jobs for those in their 50s and older grew sharply, the government data showed.
(Yonhap)
