Why More Young South Koreans Are Stepping Away From Work

A shrinking desire to work among young adults

Nearly 2.73 million young South Koreans, about 77 percent of the economically inactive youth population, reported no intention of finding a job, according to a Korea Labor Institute report. The findings point to a growing problem for a country with a highly educated population, rapid population aging and an exceptionally low birth rate: many young adults are outside employment and are not trying to enter it.

The report, described as released in June 2024, examines data from 2015 to 2024 and focuses on people aged 19 to 39 who are not actively seeking employment. Among young, unmarried South Koreans living with their parents, willingness to seek work declined over the decade. In 2015, 56.1 percent of economically inactive young people living at home expressed a willingness to work. By 2024, the figure was 50 percent.

South Korea's rapid economic growth and educational achievements have long been central to its success. Yet a university qualification does not always lead to a suitable job, and the competition for secure employment can leave young people spending years preparing, facing rejection or withdrawing from the search.

By July 7, 2025, the picture included both a decline in willingness to work and a rise in young people described as simply resting. Economic conditions, unequal job opportunities, family expectations and mental health pressures all feature in explanations of the trend.

For the young people involved, the issue reaches beyond a missing paycheck. Long periods away from employment can weaken skills, reduce future earnings and deepen isolation. For South Korea, fewer young workers could add to labor shortages as the population grows older.

What economic inactivity means

Economically inactive young people are neither working nor actively looking for a job. The category includes people attending school, caring for family members, resting or staying outside the labor market for other reasons. An unemployed person who is actively seeking work belongs to a different category.

The Korea Labor Institute found a sharp increase in young people who wanted to work but believed they had no chance of getting a job. Their number rose from just over 5,000 in 2015 to 175,000 in 2024. Over the same period, the number who felt they had job opportunities fell from nearly 80,000 to fewer than 15,000.

About 20 percent of economically inactive young people said they were willing to work but had undertaken no job search activities during the previous four weeks. Wanting employment and taking steps to find it can therefore be very different things. Someone may wish to earn a living while feeling too discouraged, overwhelmed or unprepared to begin another search.

The share who said they would be able to work if offered a job also fell, from 54 percent in 2015 to 31 percent in 2024. This adds another practical concern: some young people outside employment may need support before they can take up a position, even when one becomes available.

The COVID-19 pandemic is cited as a major factor in the decline in readiness to work. The longer trend, however, also involves problems that extend beyond the pandemic, including the difficulty of finding suitable employment and the pressures surrounding education and career preparation.

Resting has become more common

The Korea Labor Institute identifies resting, education and child care as three main reasons for economic inactivity. Their changing shares show that young people are spending time outside employment for different reasons than a decade earlier.

The share engaged in child care dropped from 26.8 percent to 13.8 percent over the decade. During the same period, the share classified as resting rose from 10.5 percent to 20 percent, roughly doubling. The proportion attending school stayed relatively stable.

Resting is a label for taking a break from work or study. Behind that brief description can be very different experiences, including exhaustion, repeated job rejection and withdrawal from the pressure to compete. The increase makes it necessary to look beyond whether a young person has submitted a job application and consider what is keeping that person away from work.

Yoon, a 22-year-old former music student, spent five years isolated at home. Her experience involved burnout, parental expectations and mental health struggles. Similar pressures affect other young people who retreat from the labor market after intense competition and repeated rejection.

Lee Yeon-jin, a professor of sociology at Kookmin University, connects young people's reluctance to follow conventional routes into work and marriage with a failure to understand their changing outlook:

Today's youth think fundamentally differently from previous generations. Our society has failed to truly understand young people, who are increasingly reluctant to pursue traditional paths of employment and marriage.

Lee's explanation places the employment problem within a wider social setting. Young adults face expectations about education, work and family life, while some are increasingly reluctant to pursue the paths previous generations treated as standard.

Why more education does not guarantee a suitable job

South Korea has one of the highest rates of tertiary education among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Among people aged 25 to 34, 77 percent of women and 63 percent of men hold a university degree. Despite those qualifications, the youth employment rate remains well below the OECD average.

Education inflation, also called credentialism, helps explain the gap. Employers may require increasingly advanced qualifications for work that previously needed less education. Young people then spend more time acquiring credentials, even when those credentials do not bring a clear improvement in their job prospects.

Many young South Koreans invest years in university and preparation for employment, only to find that their skills do not match available positions. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 83 percent of job openings, but they offer lower wages and fewer benefits than large corporations.

For a graduate who has spent years preparing for a prestigious career, accepting a less attractive position can feel like abandoning the purpose of that investment. Many consequently remain unemployed or economically inactive rather than take work they consider beneath their qualifications.

The Korea Economic Institute of America describes this concentration on prestigious education and employment as the "Golden Ticket Syndrome." Its explanation connects competition for university places with pressure on students and the cost borne by their families:

Young people prioritize university education despite the low financial returns. The competition for top universities, which typically involves study at private education institutions, imposes a heavy financial burden on families and pressure on students.

Nearly half of university graduates are overqualified for their jobs, meaning their qualifications exceed what their work requires. Many spend months or years looking for suitable employment. Together, lengthy preparation, uncertain returns from education and a limited supply of attractive positions contribute to a growing group of highly educated young people outside the workforce.

Women and graduates face particular gaps

More men than women are economically inactive in total, while the proportion of inactive women has increased over the decade. Among young people aged 15 to 24, the share of inactive women rose from 40 percent in 2015 to 42.3 percent in 2024. For those aged 25 to 34, it increased from 35 percent to 40.9 percent.

The OECD also identifies a gap between education and employment for young women. Although women have higher educational attainment than men, the employment rate among young women with university degrees is 76 percent, compared with 83 percent for their male peers.

College graduates have become more prominent among people not looking for work. The percentage increased from 19.4 percent in 2015 to 23.7 percent in 2024 among younger people, and from 54.3 percent to 58.8 percent among older individuals.

These figures place highly educated people at the center of the inactivity problem. Expanding access to education alone leaves another task unresolved: helping graduates move into jobs that use their skills and offer acceptable wages, benefits and security.

The figures entering 2025

Statistics Korea data showed that the number of unemployed or economically inactive young people reached 1.21 million in early 2025, an increase of 70,000 from the previous year. Among them, 504,000 said they were "just resting," the highest level since collection of those data began in 2003.

Young people who have found employment also face difficulties. One in four young workers is classified as underemployed. Underemployment means having work that falls short of the amount or level of work a person needs or can do. Many employed young people hold positions that are temporary or offer only part time hours.

The developments stretch across several years:

• 2015: Willingness to work among economically inactive young people living at home stood at 56.1 percent. Just over 5,000 wanted work but believed they had no chance of finding a job.
• 2015 to 2024: The Korea Labor Institute examined changes in inactivity among people aged 19 to 39, including willingness to work and reasons for remaining outside employment.
• June 2024: The institute's report was described as released, with willingness to work at 50 percent in 2024 and 175,000 young people wanting work but seeing no chance of obtaining it.
• Early 2025: Unemployed or economically inactive young people numbered 1.21 million, including 504,000 who said they were just resting.

Sluggish economic growth, weak domestic demand and a preference among employers for experienced hires over fresh graduates are cited as reasons for the employment difficulties. For someone seeking a first job, competition is therefore shaped by both the number of vacancies and the experience employers expect applicants to bring.

A divided job market and an aging population

South Korea's labor market is divided between secure jobs with good pay in large companies and less secure positions with lower pay in smaller businesses. This is often called a dual labor market: workers in the same economy can face very different standards of wages, benefits and job security depending on where they work.

That division helps explain why vacancies and young people outside employment can exist at the same time. Smaller employers have openings, while many young applicants continue to seek the conditions offered by large companies. The result is a difficult transition from education into employment for people unwilling to accept the available alternatives.

Long periods of inactivity can allow skills to weaken and lower earnings across a person's working life. Social isolation and mental health problems can also become more likely, adding personal costs to the loss of employment income.

South Korea faces the wider consequences as its population ages rapidly and birth rates remain extremely low. Reduced participation by young adults can worsen labor shortages, slow economic growth and place more pressure on the social safety net, the public support available to people who need financial or practical help.

Heo Su-jin, a youth policy expert at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, warns that young people's withdrawal from employment could reduce the workforce at a time when demographic change is already making labor supply a concern:

In this era of ultra-low birth rates, this trend could diminish the labor supply, potentially hampering national economic growth.

Government programs and help closer to home

The South Korean government has introduced several programs aimed at helping young people return to employment. The Youth Employment All-Care Platform offers job placement and counseling. The National Employment Support System provides financial assistance and bonuses for people who secure work.

The Youth Challenge Support Program works with local youth centers to provide job coaching, mental healthcare and workshops for personal development. Its combination of employment assistance and personal support reflects the different needs of young people who have become disconnected from work.

Government programs face difficulty reaching the most isolated and vulnerable young people. Someone who has withdrawn from social contact may also be hard to reach through ordinary employment services. Nongovernmental organizations have stepped in to address gaps in support.

The social enterprise Seed:s offers free programs and basic financial assistance to help young people rejoin society. For those struggling with isolation, reconnecting with other people can be part of the process of becoming ready for education or employment again.

Kim Dae-jong, a professor at Sejong University, calls for support to begin earlier, while young people are still in education. He argues that opportunities for volunteering and emotional development should extend from middle school through university:

Students from middle school through university need access to volunteer opportunities and emotional development programs to become well-adjusted adults.

Kim also advocates structural changes to create more quality jobs, including reducing corporate taxes to attract international companies and expanding vocational education and training. These are proposed measures alongside the existing employment and community programs.

What vocational routes and OECD recommendations offer

The OECD has addressed South Korea's youth employment difficulties in several reports. Its recommendations include better career guidance and counseling, more vocational education and apprenticeships, and incentives for tertiary institutions to offer degrees more closely connected to labor market needs.

Vocational education prepares students for particular occupations through practical learning. Apprenticeships combine learning with work experience. Both can provide a more direct route from education into a job than spending years collecting qualifications without a clear employment destination.

Meister high schools offer an example within South Korea. These schools combine education with work experience and have achieved employment rates above 90 percent for graduates. However, only a small fraction of students attend them or participate in apprenticeship programs.

Their results have supported calls to make vocational routes more attractive and accessible. A wider range of respected education and career options could help young people whose abilities and interests do not fit the pursuit of a prestigious university place followed by employment at a large corporation.

The OECD also recommends addressing the division between secure and insecure employment and expanding the social safety net for young people. Those proposals concern the quality of work and the support available during the search for it, alongside the skills applicants bring.

South Korea's response therefore involves several connected tasks: creating more and better jobs, supporting mental health, reducing stigma around less conventional career paths and building a more inclusive and flexible labor market. Job counseling can help a person find an opening, while changes to education and employment conditions address why the transition into work has become so difficult.

Key Points

• Willingness to work among economically inactive young people living at home fell from 56.1 percent in 2015 to 50 percent in 2024.
• Nearly 2.73 million young people, about 77 percent of the economically inactive youth population, reported no intention of finding a job.
• The number wanting work but believing they had no chance of getting a job rose from just over 5,000 to 175,000.
• In early 2025, 504,000 young people said they were just resting, the highest figure since data collection began in 2003.
• Education and job mismatches, unequal employment conditions, intense competition and mental health pressures contribute to withdrawal from work.
• Government and community programs provide financial help, counseling, job coaching and support for reconnecting with society.
• The OECD recommends stronger career guidance, vocational routes, changes to the divided labor market and more support for young people.