FKI "700,000 Jobs in Major Industries to Disappear in 2024"

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] As South Korea enters the future industrial society, it is projected that by 2024, approximately 706,000 jobs across 10 major industries will be at risk of disappearing.

On the 2nd, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) estimated the current employment status in the 10 major industries expected to be most affected by future job transitions based on the World Economic Forum (WEF) report (using 2018 employment figures). The analysis indicated that by 2024, about 706,000 workers may fail to successfully transition to new jobs.

Estimated Impact of Job Transition by 10 Major Domestic Industries
※Data estimated by the Federation of Korean Industries based on the Industrial Statistics Analysis System (Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, 2018 data) and World Economic Forum materials.

Automobile Industry Accelerates Shift to Electric Vehicles... 10% of Workers Face Unemployment Risk

The top 10 key industries analyzed by FKI include automobiles, machinery, shipbuilding, steel, metals, finance and insurance, wholesale and retail, transportation and storage, professional scientific technology, and education.

Among these, the automobile sector, a core industry in South Korea, is particularly vulnerable, with over 37,000 workers?more than 10% of the total 350,000 employees?at risk of losing their jobs. This is due to the faster-than-expected shift to electric vehicles, which require significantly fewer parts compared to traditional internal combustion engines. The activation of autonomous vehicles in the future is expected to have an even greater impact on employment.

Additionally, service sectors such as wholesale and retail (274,000 workers), transportation and storage (86,000 workers), and finance and insurance (73,000 workers) are also predicted to face job losses due to the expansion of online and contactless markets, as well as the introduction of automated equipment and unmanned services based on AI and big data.

In response to these future job loss risks, major global companies and competing countries are focusing on countermeasures. Since 2019, Amazon has invested $700 million to retrain 100,000 of its 300,000 U.S.-based employees engaged in relatively simple tasks, targeting them for job transitions.

German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen has decided to prioritize hiring previously laid-off workers who have undergone retraining when recruiting 2,000 electric vehicle manufacturing personnel. The German government, steel association, and metalworkers’ union have jointly committed to technical retraining to protect 85,000 steel industry jobs during the transition to eco-friendly manufacturing processes such as hydrogen reduction steelmaking.

83% of the 2030 Generation Express Concern Over Future Job Reductions

A survey conducted by FKI through the market research firm Monoresearch, targeting 829 men and women in their 20s and 30s nationwide, revealed that 83% of respondents expect job reductions in the future industrial society.

Regarding the drawbacks of the future industrial society, the most common opinion (36%) was job losses due to factory automation. The most cited advantage was increased efficiency and convenience (40.6%). When asked about the timing of South Korea’s entry into a future industrial society characterized by widespread use of autonomous vehicles and AI, 65.7% of respondents answered that it would occur within the next 10 years.

When asked about urgent measures to secure future jobs, the introduction of flexible labor market systems ranked highest at 30.7%, followed by improvements in education systems for nurturing future talent (26.2%), measures for victims affected during the transition to the future industrial society (23.5%), and deregulation and infrastructure development (16.2%).

In response, FKI argued that to solve the social job shortage problem caused by changes in future industrial trends, the government, companies, and workers must cooperate to prepare flexible response plans for changes in the job environment. The government should establish labor market flexibilization measures for smooth job transitions and policies for nurturing future talent; companies should strengthen job transition, reemployment, and retraining programs; and workers should strive to acquire new technologies necessary for job transitions and reemployment.

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