The number of high school graduates continuing on to further education has been dropping over recent years.
With the number of jobs requiring a college degree stagnates... and the number of low-skilled jobs is on the rise,...
our Won Jung-hwan looks into how changes in the labor market could be contributing to the fall in college enrollment rates.
Even a few years ago, the unemployment rate was rising faster for high school graduates than for college graduates. However since 2013, the numbers of high school graduates in work has rebounded, while more and more college graduates struggle to find jobs.
Before 2013, the changing labor market meant a fall in 'blue-collar' jobs in the production and technical sectors.
According to Statistics Korea, blue-collar jobs in Korea fell from 570-thousand in 2000 to 330-thousand in 2010.
So as finding a job became difficult,… further education seemed a better option, and the percentage of high school graduates enrolling in further education grew to more than 70-percent in the late 2000s.
But since 2008,… with an increase in the number of low-skilled service jobs and a rise in general wages,… the high school graduate employment rate began to rise.
"In the early 2000s, there were few jobs for high school graduates in the labor market,... but after the global financial crisis, the demand for less-skilled jobs increased amid the economic recovery and the change in the labor market."
While the demand for blue-collar jobs increased, the number of jobs requiring a college education stagnated.
According to Statistics Korea,… since 2013, while the employment rate for high school graduates increased by nearly 10-percent in 4-years, for university graduates, it stayed the same.
This trend seems likely to continue in the near future, and some university students are questioning the need for a college degree.
"Students not continuing their studies further could also mean that they are doing what they want to do,… and to be honest, I have come to university because I was worried people might look me in a different way if I do not have a degree".
"I do not think that university is a necessary thing in our life,… and nowadays I think that there is not much difference between getting a job after graduating from high school and getting a job after graduating from university."
If the employment rate for college graduates continues to stagnate, demand for further education could continue to fall.
Won Jung-hwan, Arirang News.
