"If You Have No Money, You Can't Get a Job"... Job Seekers Cry Twice Over 'Mujeonmuup' [Heo Midam's Youth Report]

TOEIC and Other Exam Fees Increase
93.7% of Job Seekers Relate to 'No Money, No Job'... Spending an Average of 440,000 Won Monthly on Building Specs

Young job seekers are looking at a recruitment bulletin board. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. Photo by Asia Economy DB.

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[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Midam] "It's hard to prepare for employment without money," "Please lower the exam fees."

As the employment crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the competition among young job seekers to build their credentials is becoming fiercer. Amid this, a new term "Mujeon Mueop" (無錢無業), meaning "no money, no job," is gaining attention. This term self-deprecatingly expresses the fact that job seekers spend a lot of money accumulating credentials such as language certificates. Job seekers, already struggling with difficult employment conditions, are sighing deeply as the costs of preparing for employment add up significantly.

Recently, various exam fees that job seekers prepare for have been rising rapidly. Earlier, YBM Korea TOEIC Committee, the organizer of TOEIC, raised the TOEIC exam fee from 44,500 KRW to 48,000 KRW starting May 23. This is the first fee increase in five years since 2016.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry also raised the fees for seven national technical qualification exams by up to 5,000 KRW in March. This is the first increase in two years since 2019.

In particular, the written exam fee for the Computer Utilization Ability Test, considered an "essential credential" when applying to various public enterprises, increased from 17,800 KRW to 19,000 KRW, and the practical exam fee rose from 21,000 KRW to 22,500 KRW, marking increases of 6.7% and 7.1%, respectively. Considering that job seekers often take these exams multiple times to achieve their desired results, the perceived rate of increase is inevitably higher.

A citizen is taking the TOEIC test. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Given this situation, job seekers are voicing self-deprecating remarks like "Without money, you can't even build your credentials." Kim (24), a university student, said, "My wallet gets thin quickly when I go to take certification exams," adding, "For example, to get the desired score on the TOEIC, you have to attend academies or take online lectures. This process costs several hundred thousand won, and even taking the TOEIC exam once costs 50,000 KRW."

He continued, "The minimum wage is 8,720 KRW, so you have to work almost six hours to afford one TOEIC exam," and lamented, "Also, TOEIC scores don't last a lifetime; their validity is only two years."

Another university student, Jung (25), said, "Since companies require different qualifications, you have no choice but to prepare various things," and added, "I feel sorry to ask my parents for money, so I am preparing for employment with the money I have saved."

Meanwhile, the majority of job seekers empathize with the term "Mujeon Mueop," meaning "no money, no job." According to a survey conducted by JobKorea and Albamon in August targeting 820 job seekers, 93.7% of respondents agreed with the concept of "Mujeon Mueop."

The reasons they agreed with "Mujeon Mueop" included ▲high costs for online and academy classes for studying certifications (70.1%) ▲burden of exam fees for qualification tests like TOEIC (53.9%) ▲feeling that their credentials are too lacking compared to competitors (37.1%) ▲and fiercer job competition after COVID-19 (37.0%).

In fact, the expenses young people spend to build their credentials are not insignificant. In the same survey, job seekers reported spending an average of about 443,768 KRW per month on building their credentials.

Meanwhile, the government and local governments are actively supporting youth employment. The Ministry of Employment and Labor provides job promotion allowances of up to 3 million KRW per low-income job seeker and offers customized employment support services.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon also submitted a 44.0748 trillion KRW budget proposal for the next year to the Seoul Metropolitan Council, allocating 993.4 billion KRW for youth support projects. Among this, 60.2 billion KRW was allocated to the "Seoul Youth Allowance," which provides up to 500,000 KRW per month for up to six months to young people who have not found employment immediately after graduation.

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