"South Korea's Youth College Graduate Unemployment Rate Worsens... Ranked 28th Among 37 OECD Countries"

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] A survey revealed that the unemployment rate of young college graduates in Korea is higher than the average of OECD countries.

The Korea Economic Research Institute announced on the 1st that an analysis of the youth (ages 25-34) higher education attainment rates and employment indicators of OECD countries over the past 10 years (2009-2019) showed that the average youth college graduate unemployment rate in OECD countries improved by 0.8 percentage points from 6.1% in 2009 to 5.3% in 2019, whereas Korea's rate worsened by 0.7 percentage points from 5.0% to 5.7% during the same period.

Korea's ranking in youth college graduate unemployment rate also dropped significantly from 14th among 37 OECD countries in 2009 to 28th in 2019, falling to the lower tier.

Looking at changes in youth college graduate unemployment rates among the G5 (United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France), improvements were recorded as follows: ▲United States 2.8 percentage points (5.2%→2.4%) ▲Japan 2.1 percentage points (4.7%→2.6%) ▲United Kingdom 1.5 percentage points (3.9%→2.4%) ▲Germany 1.4 percentage points (4.0%→2.6%) ▲France 0.6 percentage points (6.4%→5.8%).

During the same period, only eight OECD countries, including Korea, saw an increase in youth college graduate unemployment rates. Based on the magnitude of increase, Korea (0.7 percentage points) ranked 4th after Greece (7.0 percentage points), Turkey (1.7 percentage points), and Denmark (1.5 percentage points).

Meanwhile, Korea's youth higher education attainment rate rose by 9.2 percentage points from 60.6% in 2009 to 69.8% in 2019, significantly exceeding the OECD average increase of 8.6 percentage points. Since 2009, Korea has consistently ranked first among OECD countries in this regard.

Although Korea had the highest youth higher education attainment rate among OECD member countries, its employment rate for college graduates remained near the bottom.

Korea's youth college graduate employment rate slightly increased by 2.5 percentage points from 73.9% in 2009 to 76.4% in 2019, but its ranking within the OECD only improved from 35th to 33rd during the same period, remaining at a very low level.

The Korea Economic Research Institute analyzed that this is because a high proportion of young college graduates in Korea give up job searching or do not participate in economic activities due to job preparation. In fact, in 2019, Korea's youth college graduate non-economic activity rate was 18.9%, ranking 3rd highest in the OECD after Italy (23.1%) and the Czech Republic (21.1%).

Choo Kwang-ho, Director of Economic Policy at the Korea Economic Research Institute, said, “If youth college graduate unemployment does not improve, social and economic human capital losses could intensify. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the private sector's capacity for job creation through deregulation and labor market structural reforms, and to strengthen industry-academia-research cooperation by reflecting industry needs in educational curricula.”

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