Univ. Students Spend 4 Hours a Day on Job Skills

Most Korean university students want to become secondary school teachers and study an average of four hours to build the skills needed to get a job.

The state-run Korea Employment Information Service surveyed 6,000 college students from May 1 to June 30 with the Korean Women’s Development Institute to find out collegian perceptions of jobs and their preferences.

Most university students chose secondary school teacher as their favored career, followed by architect or architectural engineer, administrative government official, staff at a trading company, and social worker.

Students at junior colleges preferred social worker, optometrist, government official, architect, architectural engineer and kindergarten teacher.

College students said they seek an average monthly wage of 1.91 million won per month -- 2.04 million won for university students and 1.61 million won for those at junior colleges. Male students wanted a starting salary 10 percent more than that of female students.

Collegians also spend a significant amount of time and energy on getting a job.

The survey said they study an average of 4.3 hours a day to get a job, broken down into 1.79 hours studying their major; 1.5 hours preparing for job applications; 1.49 hours learning a foreign language; and 1.4 hours getting a certificate.

They spent an average of 172,500 won per month for courses or using a private study room. Men (180,300 won) spent more than women (154,300 won).

“Unemployment is apparently getting serious as students want jobs that offer security,” researcher Kang Min-jeong said. “The unemployment problem will be addressed when students divert their attention to other jobs by learning about the unknown world of jobs and the labor market.”

firedy@donga.com