College Graduate Employment Rate Drops by 0.6%p from Last Year... Average First Salary 2,596,000 KRW

Lowest Employment Rate in Humanities
Greater Decline in Female Employment Rate
Graduate School > Junior College > General University Order

On the 16th, a job seeker visiting an Employment Welfare Plus Center in Seoul is looking at the job information bulletin board. According to the 'September Employment Trends' announced by Statistics Korea on the same day, the number of employed people last month was 27,012,000, a decrease of 392,000 compared to one year ago. This is the largest decline in four months since May (392,000). Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] The employment rate of university graduates has decreased compared to last year. The employment rate in the humanities field was the lowest, and the decline in the employment rate among women was greater.

The Ministry of Education and the Korea Educational Development Institute announced on the 28th the results of the 2019 Higher Education Institution Graduate Employment Statistics Survey, which investigated employment and further education status among graduates from nationwide 4-year universities, education universities, junior colleges, and general graduate schools.

According to the data, the total number of employed graduates from higher education institutions last year was 323,038, which is 67.1% of the 481,599 employment candidates. This represents a 0.6 percentage point decrease compared to the previous year. The number of graduates who pursued further education instead of employment was 35,800, accounting for 6.5%, which is a 0.3 percentage point increase from the previous year.

The employment rates by school type were 63.3% for general universities, 70.9% for junior colleges, and 79.9% for general graduate schools. While the employment rate for general graduate schools increased by 1.0 percentage point, junior colleges decreased by 0.2 percentage points, general universities by 0.9 percentage points, and education universities by 5.0 percentage points.

By field of study, the employment rates were high in engineering (69.9%) and medical/pharmaceutical fields (83.7%), whereas humanities (56.2%), social sciences (63.4%), education (62.7%), and arts and physical education (64.5%) showed lower employment rates.

Regionally, the employment rate for graduates from universities in the Seoul metropolitan area was 68.7%, while the rate for non-metropolitan areas was 66.0%, showing a 2.7 percentage point difference. Among the 17 provinces and metropolitan cities, 12 regions except Seoul, Ulsan, Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, and Jeju experienced a decline in employment rates compared to the previous year.

The employment rate by gender was 69.0% for male graduates and 65.2% for female graduates. Both decreased, but the decline in the male employment rate was smaller than that of females.

◆ Most common job preparation period was 'before graduation' = The average starting monthly salary for employed graduates last year was 2,596,000 KRW. The average monthly income for bachelor's degree holders was 2,416,000 KRW, and for general graduate school graduates, it was 4,462,000 KRW.

The job preparation period showed that 35.8% of employed graduates found jobs before graduation, which was the highest proportion, followed by within 3 months after graduation (25.9%), 6 months (15.1%), 9 months (14.3%), and over 10 months (8.9%).

By company type, the largest proportion was in small and medium-sized enterprises (46.0%), followed by non-profit organizations (16.8%), large corporations (10.9%), mid-sized companies (8.4%), public institutions and government enterprises (8.2%), and national and local government bodies (6.1%).

Meanwhile, the rate of maintaining employment status for about one year (11 months) after employment was 80.2%, which is a 1.2 percentage point increase compared to the previous year.

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