Nearly a third of S Korea’s PhD graduates struggle to find work
This trend reflects the country’s overall economic situation with unemployment on the rise. Among those with a doctorate, young people under 30 report the worst figure (47.7 per cent), while the number of those who voluntarily leave the job market is also increasing.
Seoul (AsiaNews) – In South Korea, the unemployment rate among PhD graduates is rising with almost one in three struggling to find work, Korea Statistics reported.
The results are based on a survey conducted between August 2024 and February 2025 with 10,442 recent graduates.
Overall, about 29.6 per cent are currently unemployed, up from last year when it was 25.8 per cent, and from 2014, when the surveys began, when it was 24.5 per cent.
This increase signals the growing difficulties young South Koreans face despite the country’s advanced economy.
Graduates under 30 were the hardest hit with 47.7 per cent unable to find a job, with peaks in the arts and humanities, while the outlook is better for those with doctorates in health and welfare, education, business and law.
“[These figures], coupled with the decline in the number of employed youth across the country, suggest that even highly educated people are not free from the youth employment crisis,” writes the Youth Daily.
In fact, the problem does not only concern PhD students. Statistics Korea reported that in January, the employment rate among 20-29-year-olds fell to 59.7 per cent, down more than two percentage points from the previous year and lower than the overall national employment rate of 61 per cent.
Another trend that is causing concern in South Korea is the rise in the number of young people who choose to take a break from their jobs, so they are not included in the data that measures the labour force.
In January alone, about 37,000 South Koreans in their 20s said they had stopped working to "rest", up by 10.3 per cent over the same period the previous year.
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