College grads with jobs outnumber those from high school

More college graduates had jobs than high school graduates as of March this year for the first time in Korea, Statistics Korea said Tuesday.

If the trend continues, the number of employed college graduates will exceed that of employed high school graduates among the economically active population aged 15 years old or over. As a result, “academic inflation” could take root in the job market.

Statistics Korea said the number of employed college graduates including those who graduated from community college and graduate school (9,541,000) surpassed that of employed high school graduates (9,503,000) by 38,000 as of March, a first in the country.

Korea has more high school graduates (15,742,000) than college graduates (12,907,000) among the economically active population aged 15 or over. Though more high school graduates are ready to work than college graduates, the number of hired college graduates exceeded that of those with a high school diploma.

The college graduate population has steadily risen 3-4 percent per year and the trend is here to stay.

This change came amid the trend of most high school graduates going to college. In 1980, only 27.2 percent went to college but since the mid-2000s, the figure has skyrocketed to 80 percent. Even 71.7 percent of vocational school graduates, whose main purpose is employment, went to college while only 19.2 percent were employed last year.

The Korea Employment Information Service forecast that the economically active population will increase an average of 217,000 from 2008 to 2018 with college graduates accounting for 270,000 and high school graduates 32,000.

The number of middle school graduates and those who failed to finish middle school will drop by 85,000 per year. The share of economically active college graduates will rise from 37.7 percent in 2008 to 43.9 percent in 2018 while that of economically active high school graduates will decline from 41.2 percent to 39 percent.

If the number of college graduates dramatically increases at a time when there are not enough decent jobs for them, the mismatch between academic background and decent jobs will grow more serious with job downgrades and higher youth unemployment.

achim@donga.com