Job creation lowest on record among under 30s in South Korea

Seoul: The number of newly hired workers in their teens and 20s marked the lowest figure since an official tally has been kept since 2018, a governmen...

Seoul: The number of newly hired workers in their teens and 20s marked the lowest figure since an official tally has been kept since 2018, a government data showed yesterday.

A total of 1.45 million new hires among people under the age of 30 occurred in the second quarter of this year, down 8.6 percent from 1.59 million in the same quarter in last year, according to the Korean Statistical Information Service data by the Statistics Korea. 

The number of existing jobs held by the same worker for Q2 marked 1.6 million, up 3,000 from the same period in 2023.

The decrease in new jobs for the 15-29 group -- youngest group in the working population -- was substantial even considering the continued decline in the country’s youth population. 

There were 8.17 million South Koreans aged 15-19 in Q2 -- a 2.9 percent decrease from the year before -- which means the new jobs for young people was shrinking at an even faster pace than the youth population decline.