One of Five in “Downward Employment”

A Kim, who graduated from a university February of last year, has recently been employed as a salesman in TV home-shopping company.

Even though his family wanted him to look for a prestigious job, he lowered his standards because he hated the frustration he felt whenever his job application was rejected. However, he couldn’t be free from thinking that “I’m not a person who works in this kind of job.”

It is revealed that 20 percent of all the employees feel that their own job falls short of their standards compared to their education just like Kim. This is referred to as “downward employment.”

According to a research result about the downward job application tendency presented on October 20 by Korea Labor Institute (KLI), 1158 (19.8 percent) of 5840, who were employed last year, replied that they were overeducated for their present job.

The result showed that the younger the age of the person, the higher the percentage of the survey: 17.9 percent over age of sixty, 18.3 percent in their fifties, 19.5 percent in forties, and 22.9 percent below thirties.

Kim Ki-heon, a researcher with KLI, explained this tendency, “The opportunity of being employed becomes less as companies which used to employ many new hands turned to employing workers with experience ever since the currency crisis.” The rate of downward employment by academic background was highest: 25 percent among those who graduated from 2-year or 3-year college felt this way. The rate by occupation was high, 24 percent among each of sales, technical service, production work, and simple labor service felt they were in downward employment status. Especially, the rate of downward employment in daily and temporary employment was 35 percent and 32 percent, respectively, which was much higher that that of regular employment (18 percent). Compared with the employers who replied that they obtained a job suitable with their education, those who didn’t showed a low degree of satisfaction in all aspects, such as wage stability, working hours, chances for development and welfare. Kim said, “Demand and supply in the labor market is seriously discordant in terms of quality as well as quantity. The fundamental solution lies in the change of educational institutes including universities aiming at equipping students for the practical demand of industry.”

Kyung-Joon Chung news91@donga.com