Last Month, 504,000 Youths Were 'Resting'... Record High (Update)
by Song Seungseop
Published 12 Mar.2025 08:31(KST)
Updated 12 Mar.2025 09:10(KST)
The youth employment indicators are on a worsening trend. Despite overall improvements in employment indicators, the youth employment rate and the number of employed youth are rapidly declining. The number of young people who answered that they were resting because they could not find the job they wanted also reached an all-time high.
According to the 'February Employment Trends' released by Statistics Korea on the 12th, the number of employed people last month was 28,179,000, an increase of 136,000 compared to a year ago. The employment rate for those aged 15 and over rose by 0.1 percentage points to 61.7%. The employment rate for those aged 15-64, the OECD comparison standard, increased by 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 68.9%.
Despite the overall improvement in employment, youth employment indicators deteriorated. The employment rate for those aged 15-29 was 44.3%, the lowest in four years since February 2021, about a year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of employed people aged 15-29 was 3,557,000, down 235,000 from a year ago. The decrease is the largest since January 2021 (-314,000).
In particular, the number of young people who were 'resting' increased significantly. Last month, the number of 15-29-year-olds who were resting was 504,000, an increase of 61,000 from the previous year. This is the highest since Statistics Korea began investigating the 'resting' category in January 2003.
Gong Mi-sook, Director of the Social Statistics Bureau at Statistics Korea, explained, "The increasing preference of companies for experienced workers is working against young people," adding, "The main reason young people gave for resting was that it was difficult to find the job they wanted."
On the other hand, the number of employed elderly aged 60 and over increased by 342,000. This means that the elderly compensated for the decrease in the number of employed youth.
By industry, the number of employed people in construction decreased by 167,000, the largest decline. The number of employed people in construction was 1,909,000, the lowest in eight years for February. Employment in construction has been declining for ten consecutive months due to continued economic downturn.
The manufacturing sector is also facing poor employment conditions. The number of employed people in manufacturing was 4,386,000, down 74,000 from the previous year. The decline in manufacturing employment has continued for eight months.
However, employment increased in sectors such as health and social welfare services (192,000), professional, scientific and technical services (80,000), and information and communication (65,000).
The unemployment rate was 3.2%, the same as the previous year. The number of unemployed was 940,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous year. The number of unemployed youth increased by 5,000 to 269,000. The youth unemployment rate was 7.0%, up 0.5 percentage points from the same month last year.
The economically inactive population was 16,575,000, an increase of 7,000 from a year ago.
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