Youth Jobless Rate High, Emergence of Lost Generation in Korea

An increasing number of young people in their 20s and 30s are leaving the country.

As the number of jobless youth and credit delinquents soars, there are growing worries about the future of Korean society. Therefore, a mounting number of young people are trying to emigrate for new opportunities and some of those who feel helpless are committing suicide.

If people in their 20s and 30s on the verge of crisis are left unnoticed, the future of the nation is very likely to be grim, economic experts warn.

Young people are extremely concerned about employment at the moment.

The jobless rate of those in their 20s reached 6.9 percent at the end of July, doubling 3.4 percent of the average rate. Moreover, the rate of economically active population in the group is 66.2 percent, far below that of those in their 40s (78.6 percent) and 50s (69.8 percent).

Credit delinquents in their 20s amount to 660,700 people or 14 percent of the economically active population in the same age group in the same month while those in their 30s accounted for 884,300 or 15.6 percent of the same age group.

In the meantime, their desire for emigration is rising. When a TV home shopping company recently introduced an emigration program about Canada, some 4,000 viewers applied for it with people in their 20s and 30s accounting for more than 60 percent of the applicants.

Frustration of youth is becoming the epicenter of ideological bipolarization and social unrest, some point out. On the Internet, these days, there are a great deal of curse and anger toward Korean society expressed by young people.

If the youth are indifferent to self-awakening and the establishment does not care about providing job opportunities, young people could become the ‘lost generation,’ causing a national crisis, experts say.

“After the 1997-1998 financial crisis, companies and banks have proactively been accommodating the market theory, but education and labor sectors are still controlled by non-market theories, leading to a prolonged unemployment of youth and loss of values,” said Yoon Soon-bong, an analyst at Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI).

“If the current crisis of the youth is to be solved and the Korean economy is to revive, the government should get rid of worries of businessmen, encourage them to increase investment, and make the labor market flexible,” stressed Lee Joo-yeol at the Bank of Korea.