Seoul City to conduct internship program involving global companies

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has announced that it will conduct “Seoul type youth internship & vocational camp,” an internship program involving global companies. The measure is being taken to help ease severe youth unemployment that has continued for more than a year amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The internship will recruit 350 people by April 26, and 10 percent of the interns will be recruited from underprivileged families, including families receiving basic living subsidies. A total of 73 companies, including startups with growth potential, are participating in the program. A number of global enterprises including 3M, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, Jansen Korea, Visa, Cola Cola, and AIA are taking part.

Anyone aged between 18 and 34 (as of the date of announcement) who are unemployed among Seoulites can submit applications. The program will recruit interns in seven areas including business administration (20 people), PR, advertising and design (45), marketing (120), web development (27), application development (38), global business administration (40), global marketing (60). Applicants can submit applications through the websites of vocational training agencies for respective areas.

Before working as interns for three months, those who are recruited for the internship program will undergo vocational training for about three months. The Seoul Metropolitan Government will pay 10 million won (about 9,000 U.S. dollars) for each intern as pay and vocational training expenses.

According to the employment trend for February released recently by the Statistics Korea, the number of employees aged from 15 to 29 declined 142,000 year-on-year. The number has been continuously declining for 13 consecutive months since February last year. The number of unemployed people reached 416,000, up 35,000 year-on-year. The unemployment rate came to 10.1 percent, the highest level since February 2017 (12.3 percent).


Seng-Hyun Kang byhuman@donga.com