Young People in Korea Face the Toughest Employment Market Since the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis
It is right now very hard for a person in their 20’s to secure a job in South Korea:
Job information pamphlets are displayed at a university career support center in Seoul on Sept. 9, 2026. (Yonhap)
The number of employed people in their 20s fell at the fastest pace this year since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, data showed Sunday, amid a trend toward entering the labor market at a later age.
The number of employed people in their 20s averaged 3.38 million in the January-August period, down 193,000 from the same period a year earlier, according to data compiled by the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS).
The decline was the steepest since 1998, when the figure plunged by 550,000 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.
You can read more at the link, but the article doesn’t say what the reasons are. However, it makes me wonder if AI is having an impact on entry level jobs in Korea?
Some of this is the economy.
Some of this is the fault of students and universities.
There are jobs out there which are not getting filled. This is because many Korean universities have adopted the increasingly common attitude of “show up to class most of the time and you get a B”.
When your degree is in “business” or “hospitality” and you have a B average with no ability to explain to a potential employer how you can add value to their operation, there is no job for you.
This goes double when it is clear you aren’t looking for a job as much as for a paycheck.
I wonder if the outsourcing of cognition to AI and the coming outsourcing of labor to humanoid robots is going to make this situation better or worse.