The employment duration of the first job for the youth (ages 15 to 29) has shortened by nearly 1 year. This marks the largest decrease in 15 years. About half of the youth who left their jobs were found to be dissatisfied with working conditions such as pay and working hours.
According to the 'May Economic Activity Population Survey Youth Supplemental Results' released by the Statistics Korea on the 24th, the average employment duration of the first job after graduation is 1 year and 6.4 months, which is a decrease of 0.8 months compared to the same month last year. This is the largest decrease since 2010.
The average time required for the first employment has sped up by 0.2 months to 11.3 months during the same period. This means that a person prepares for employment for nearly a year, works for about one and a half years at a company, and then resigns.
Song Jun-hang, Director of Employment Statistics at Statistics Korea, noted, 'The industries primarily employed by the youth are accommodation and food service, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail.' He analyzed that 'recent unfavorable manufacturing conditions are believed to affect the employment situation of the youth as well.'
The main reason for the youth resigning from their first jobs was dissatisfaction with working conditions at 46.4%. The completion of temporary or seasonal jobs or the end of contract periods accounted for 15.5%, while personal or family reasons such as health, childcare, and marriage accounted for 13.7%. When they started their first jobs, 39.7% earned less than 2 million won to 3 million won, 28.3% earned less than 1.5 million won to 2 million won, and 11.1% earned less than 1 million won to 1.5 million won.
The popularity of civil service, once the most preferred job, is waning. Among those who are neither employed nor unemployed, the proportion of people preparing for employment tests was 14.5%, with 36.0% of these preparing for private corporations.
Last year, the percentage of those preparing for private corporations surpassed that of those preparing for general civil service for the first time, and this gap has widened this year. Until last year, the proportion of those preparing for private corporations was 29.7%, and those preparing for general civil service was 23.2%, a gap of just 6.5 percentage points. This year, it has grown to 17.8 percentage points.
The unemployment duration of youth who have not yet found employment among high school graduates is gradually increasing. Those unemployed for less than 6 months accounted for 37.7% of the total, down 3.0 percentage points from May last year, while those unemployed for more than 3 years increased by 0.4 percentage points to 18.9%. The main activities of the unemployed were job training and preparing for employment tests at 40.5%, followed by just passing time at 25.1% and preparing for further education at 10.7%.
Youth employment and unemployment rates have both decreased. As of May this year, the youth employment rate stands at 46.2%, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous year. The unemployment rate also decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 6.6%. As a result, the economically active population has decreased from 4,107,000 last year to 3,943,000, and the economic participation rate has fallen from 50.3% to 49.5%.
Director Song explained, 'The economic participation rate is a measure of how many individuals in the targeted population participate in economic activities.' He added, 'The fact that this rate has fallen below 50% indicates an increase in the proportion of people in a state that is neither employed nor unemployed.'