The number of unemployed people who graduated from four-year universities or junior colleges reached its highest level in five years in the second quarter of this year. While macroeconomic indicators such as production and exports have shown solid trends led by the semiconductor industry, concerns are emerging that jobless growth may be spreading as the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other factors have limited the hiring of new college-graduate employees.
According to the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS) of the Korea Data Agency and employment trends data released on the 19th, the number of unemployed people with a college degree or higher in the second quarter was 481,000, an increase of 39,000 from the previous year. On a second-quarter basis, it was the highest figure since 2021, when the job market froze during the COVID-19 pandemic at 521,000. As a result, the second-quarter unemployment rate for those with a college degree or higher stood at 3.0%, up 0.2 percentage point from a year earlier.
Over the same period, the total number of unemployed people was 855,000, an increase of just 11,000 from the second quarter of last year. This means that the employment difficulties were particularly severe among those with a college degree or higher within the total unemployed population. An official from the Korea Data Agency explained that as the college enrollment rate has risen and the population with a college degree or higher has itself grown, both the employed and unemployed among that educational group are increasing together.
Most of the unemployed with a college degree or higher were found to be in their 20s and 30s. Among the unemployed with a college degree or higher, 179,000 were in their 20s and 130,000 were in their 30s, with the two generations combined reaching 309,000, or 64.2%. Compared with a year earlier, unemployed college graduates in their 20s increased by 7,000, and those in their 30s by 27,000. In particular, the unemployment rate for college graduates in their 20s stood at 8.3%, the highest level since 2021 (9.6%).
Looking at the figures based on prior work experience, the number of unemployed people with no work experience is rising. Unemployed people with no work experience numbered 56,000 in the second quarter, an increase of 7,000 from the same period last year. It was the first time this indicator increased on a second-quarter basis since 2019. The increase is attributed to a rise in young people who have failed to find their first job amid companies' preference for experienced workers and the growing use of open recruitment.
Lee Jung-hee, a professor of economics at Chung-Ang University, explained, "From a company's perspective, when they hire a new employee, that worker's contribution to the work falls short of their salary for about two years. For this reason, in an effort to cut costs, there is a tendency to reduce the hiring of new employees and instead recruit 'experienced newcomers.'" Suk Byung-hoon, a professor of economics at Ewha Womans University, interpreted the situation by saying, "There is analysis that AI most heavily replaces jobs held by workers with less than five years of experience. This means young people are being replaced by AI."
