South Korea's Biggest Exporter: Unemployed Graduates

SEOUL (Reuters) – Cho Min-kyong holds an engineering degree from one of the best South Korean universities, a school design award and a An almost perfect note of his English proficiency test.

But she had virtually lost hope of finding a job when her 10 applications, including one from Hyundai Motor Co, were rejected in 2016.

Six months later, a sudden help came from neighboring Japan: Cho received job offers from Nissan Motor Co and two other Japanese companies following a job fair organized by the South Korean government in the goal of matching the country's skilled workforce with its foreign employers.

"It's not that I was not good enough. There are just too many job seekers like me, that's the reason why everyone fails, "said 27-year-old, who now works in Atsugi, one hour southwest of Tokyo, as as a car seat engineer for Nissan.

"There are many other opportunities outside of Korea."

In response to an unprecedented lack of jobs in their country, many young South Koreans are now enrolling in government-sponsored programs designed to find jobs abroad for an increasing number of unemployed university graduates. the fourth largest economy in Asia.

State-run programs, such as K-move, set up to connect young Koreans to "quality jobs" in 70 countries, have allowed 5,783 graduates to find jobs at the university. last year, more than triple the number recorded in 2013, its first year.

(Graphic: Korean young talents going abroad png – tmsnrt.rs/2LwlSUU)

Nearly a third went to Japan, which is experiencing a shortage of historical labor with an unemployment rate at its lowest level in 26 years, and a quarter in the United States, where the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level. lowest level in almost half a century in April.

There is no condition. Unlike similar programs in countries such as Singapore, which impose the requirement to return to work for the government for up to six years, participants in South Korean programs are not required to return or work for the state. in the future.

"Brain drain is not the immediate concern of the government. It is more urgent to prevent them from falling into poverty, "even if it means pushing them abroad, said Kim Chul-ju, deputy dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute.

In 2018, South Korea has generated the smallest number of jobs since the global financial crisis: only 97,000.

Nearly one in five young Koreans were unemployed in 2013, which is above the average of 16% of member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In March, one in four 15-to-29-year-olds in Korea was not employed by choice or due to lack of jobs, according to government data.

(Chart: Koreans get jobs abroad by country 2018 png – tmsnrt.rs/2DZCTR9)

BAD WORK

While India and other countries face the same challenges to create jobs for a skilled workforce, the dominance of family-run conglomerates, called chaebol, makes Korea South particularly vulnerable.

The top 10 conglomerates, including world-class brands such as Samsung and Hyundai, account for half of South Korea's total market capitalization.

However, only 13% of the country's labor force is employed by firms with more than 250 people, the second lowest after Greece in OECD countries and well below 47% in Japan. "Large companies have mastered a business model that allows them to survive without raising hiring rates," as labor costs rise and layoffs remain difficult, said Kim So-young , professor of economics at the Seoul National University.

Yet, as more and more graduates are setting up overseas to work there, South Korea is bringing in more foreigners to solve another labor problem. : a serious shortage of blue-collar workers.

South Korea has the most educated youth in the OECD area, with three quarters of high school students going to college, compared to an average of 44.5%.

"South Korea is paying the price for its overprotection of high-level jobs and its enthusiasm for education, which has caused a flood of people desiring only this small number of high-level jobs Said Ban Ga-woon, a labor market researcher at Korea Research, a government agency. Institute for Vocational Education and Training.

Even amidst a crowd of over-educated and under-employed graduates, most refuse to "get their hands dirty," says Lim Chae-wook, who runs a cable tray manufacturing plant that employs 90 people in Ansan, southwest of Seoul. "The locals just do not want this job because they think their work is getting worse, so we have to hire a lot of foreign workers," Lim said, noting that nearly two dozen Philippines, Vietnam and China were working under protective masks behind them. welding machines.

In the southwestern city of Gwangju, Kim Yong-gu, general manager of Kia Motor's supplier, Hyundai Hitech, said foreign workers were more expensive, but he had no choice because he could not find enough space to fill the vacancies.

"We pay for accommodation, meals and other public services so we do not lose them to another factory," said Kim. Out of a staff of 70, 13 are Indonesian nationals who sleep and eat in a building next to its factory.

NOT HAPPY ENDING FOR ALL

For those who escaped the Korean job market, not everything was rosy.

Several people who found a job abroad with the help of the government said they ended up taking on minor jobs, such as washing dishes in Taiwan and processing meat in rural areas. Australian, or had been poorly informed about wages and working conditions.

Lee Sun-hyung, a 30-year-old sports athlete, used K-move to work in Sydney as a swim coach in 2017, but she earned less than $ 600 a month ($ 419) per month, a third of what his government managers told him. in Seoul.

"It was not what I had hoped for. I could not even afford to pay rent, "said Lee, who ended up cleaning the windows of a part-time fashion store before heading home, less than a year later. .

Officials say they "blacklist" employers and improve the control process to prevent such cases from happening again. The Ministry of Labor has also set up a "monitoring and follow-up center" to better respond to problems.

Many programs lose contact once they leave abroad. Nearly 90% of graduates who went abroad with government help between 2013 and 2016 did not respond to Ministry of Labor inquiries about their whereabouts or changes to their contact information, revealed a 2017 survey.

Nevertheless, the job market at home is pushing more and more Koreans to the program each year. The government has also increased the budget corresponding to the growing demand, from 57.4 billion won ($ 48.9 million) in 2015 to 76.8 billion won in 2018, according to data released by lawmaker Kim Jung -Hoon.

"The government is not expanding this project to such an extent that we are concerned about the brain drain," said Huh Chang, chief of the finance office for development at the South Korean Ministry of Finance, who co-manages state-run vocational training programs with unions. ministry. The goal was to meet the growing demand for overseas experience given the large number of graduates who are not in the labor force, Huh added.

A promising scenario would be that the economy someday uses the resources these graduates bring back home as experienced returnees, Huh said.

For Lee Jae-young, a 28-year-old former K-move, this seems like a distant prospect.

"The year spent abroad added a line to my resume, but that was just about everything," said Lee, who returned to Korea in February after working as a cook at JW Marriott hotel in Texas. "I went home and I'm still looking for a job."