SME Research Institute "Serious Aging of R&D Personnel in Small and Medium Enterprises"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The proportion of young researchers under the age of 40 in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has significantly declined over the past decade, intensifying the aging phenomenon among researchers.

According to a recent report titled "Analysis of the Current Status of Young R&D Personnel in SMEs and Policy Tasks" released by the Korea Small and Medium Business Institute (SMBI) on the 13th, the proportion of young researchers (39 years old and under) in SMEs decreased from 78.4% in 2008 to 54.3% in 2018.

As of 2018, the proportion of young researchers in SMEs was lower than that of medium-sized enterprises (64.7%) and large corporations (62.0%).

The number of young researchers per SME also dropped significantly from 6.2 in 2008 to 2.3 in 2018.

During the same period, the proportion of researchers in their 20s in SMEs fell from 19.8% to 14.4%, and the proportion of researchers in their 30s decreased from 58.6% to 39.9%.

Conversely, the proportion of researchers aged 40 and above increased from 21.6% to 45.7%.

The SMBI suggested that policy efforts are needed to encourage young science and engineering talent to seek employment in SMEs and remain for the long term, in order to alleviate the R&D workforce shortage and strengthen technological competitiveness in SMEs. Researcher Noh Minseon, who conducted the study, stated, "In addition to providing incentives to science and engineering graduate students on the condition that they work in SMEs after graduation, it is necessary to improve the R&D work environment in SMEs and activate various capacity-building programs."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.