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Graduates dreams meet grim reality

Summary: News Analysis With youth unemployment soaring a good education is no longer a key to upward mobilityBefore she graduated from college in 2008 Robin Chang was fairly confident about her future With a bachelor s degree from Korea s top architecture department at Hongik University the 28 year old envisioned a comfortable middle class life like her government employee parents or perhaps even a step up in the world if she worked hard enough But all those aspirations started to crumble when she got her first job at a small architectural office a typical career step for graduates like her and the grim realities of post graduate life set in Her employer squeezed by the recession soon started putting off paychecks which forced her to quit about a year later after several months of overdue salary Chang soon realized that it was hard to land a job in her profession offering steady pay not to mention a lucrative one After months of job hunting and financial struggle Chang turned in desperation to a job she hadn t performed even in college working part time at a neighborhood coffee shop with hourly pay of 4 200 won $3 78 barely over the minimum wage It s a temporary thing until I find a real job said Chang who has sent out resumes during the day and worked at the coffee shop every night for the past five months She s not starving but in her new situation she has to cut every expense except absolute essentials like basic groceries and room rent Even hanging out with friends costs too much money so I try to stay at home except when working she said Chang s situation is just one example of the growing frustration among young Koreans who face dim career prospects thwarting their expectations of a comfortable middle class lifestyle The poverty that once beset Korea is history thanks to the postwar baby boomers the heroes of the country s transformation from one of the world s poorest nations into its 15th largest economy Many young Koreans have grown up watching their parents build their wealth from scratch through decades of arduous labor that coincided with the unprecedented economic boom from the 1960s to the 80s But unlike their parents who enjoyed relatively abundant job opportunities and great upward mobility in postwar society young Koreans are faced with slower economic growth producing fewer new jobs and more rigid status structures The result The relative meritocracy that nurtured the indomitable can do spirit of their parents generation is increasingly considered an irrelevant myth by young Koreans who now find themselves stuck between yesterday s dreams and today s reality And the growing ranks of jobless youth are posing a major challenge for Seoul policy makers struggling to ease the plunging marriage and birth rates which are considered partial byproducts of employment conditions In recent months Korea s jobless rate has climbed to levels not seen for nearly a decade and youth unemployment has risen even more quickly Five percent of people could not find work in January the highest since March 2001 and the jobless rate for the population aged 20 to 29 those fresh out of high school and college was 9 8 percent in February the highest since 10 1 percent in January 2000 The government blamed the unusually high number on graduation season saying unemployment typically spikes in February since that s when new school graduates start to swarm the job market Yet youth unemployment in the second month of this year was only higher in February 1999 when the 1997 98 Asian financial crisis pushed the figure to 13 4 percent Even considering seasonal factors young workers are experiencing a crisis In this new climate some like Chang are turning to temporary part time work while others who have lost hope are giving up on the job hunt and relying on whatever they can extract from the government and their parents Many of these young people are not counted by official unemployment numbers Hyundai Economic Research Institute estimated the number of Korean freeters a Japanese expression for people lacking full time employment and working at unskilled low paid part time jobs is rising to 4 78 million as of 2008 including 1 36 million aged 15 to 29 from 3 81 million in 2003 an increase of 25 percent State statistics showed the number of Koreans aged 15 to 34 who are resting meaning not engaged in employment job hunting or training at 430 000 in 2009 a steady increase from 330 000 in 2004 set against an overall 7 percent decrease in the size of the age group as a whole The young and jobless unlike older laborers who have Korea s notoriously militant labor unions to fight against their restructuring lack a collective voice to represent themselves or push their agenda with the authorities Yet the ever worsening job market has led to a small rudimentary effort to rectify that problem Last month a group of about 80 youngsters declared they would establish a so called youth union to advocate on labor issues for young people who are unemployed or only partially employed and not covered by a union Anyone aged 15 to 39 is eligible to apply for the association which is the first labor group based on age Its role model is the General Freeter s Union a Japanese organization that works to protect the rights of young Japanese jobless and part time workers according to its founder My life itself is a case study of all kinds of part time work experiences from discount store clerk to cram school instructor said Kim Young kyung a 29 year old founder of the union in an interview with the Kookmin Ilbo daily newspaper last month Overdue pay was awfully common and even getting minimum wage was elusive Today s youngsters are stuck in a hopeless situation But none of them speaks out because they are so afraid doing so will make it harder for them to get decent jobs later she said Kim refused to talk to the JoongAng Daily since she said union members disagree with the conservative editorial stance of its Korean language counterpart the JoongAng Ilbo The Labor Ministry rejected the group s request to list itself as a formal labor union saying that some of its proclaimed goals including achieving inter Korean peace and democracy are political and unrelated to labor rights and many of its members belong to no workplace But even if the youth union has other motives sheer numbers bear out the need for something like it In 1990 33 2 percent of high school graduates went to college but that has gone up to 83 8 percent in 2008 intensifying cutthroat competition for an increasingly limited number of well paid white collar jobs I think more moves like the youth union will continue to pop up down the road said Byun Yang gyu a research fellow at Korea Economic Research Institute The more desperate the youngsters are they more they are bound to seek some collective voice or anything that can make their voices heard in any way Byun Yang gyu a research fellow at Korea Economic Research Institute said Korea s inflexible labor market where full time positions are still vehemently protected by labor unions means companies hit by a recession simply stop hiring newcomers rather than risk conflict with workers and massive severance packages Many young people also hold out for a rare job at one of Korea s household name conglomerates because there s no guarantee the country s smaller firms will ever grow and offer serious opportunities for advancement The state policies on small firms consider uncompetitive companies as weaklings that should be protected helping many of them limp on in that state for decades instead of collapsing or reinventing themselves Byun said If there is no hope that a small firm will grow into a midsized one and eventually a top dog what kind of young person would ever want to get a job there When the Miracle on the Han River was in full swing even Koreans born into poor less well educated families living in remote rural areas had a fair chance to climb the social ladder as long as they studied diligently made it to a prestigious college and worked hard Even President Lee Myung bak peddled cookies on the street to feed his family and worked as a garbage man to earn college tuition The late former President Roh Moo hyun was a poor farmer s son and could never afford college but taught himself and eventually passed the bar examination later becoming a star lawyer Thousands of self made Koreans like Lee and Roh were called dragons from a creek meaning a successful person from a humble background But dragons are increasingly extinct in modern Korea where expensive private education is a necessity to excel at school meaning children from well off families have much better access to prestigious colleges here and abroad putting them on the path to better jobs according to Kim Hisam a research fellow at Korea Development Institute Now in Korea whether or not one goes to college and which college they go to largely determines their career path marriage prospects and other aspects of life As the private education market developed parents economic status now has a deeper impact on the quality of education their children can get he said I m afraid now any poor youngsters dreaming of becoming the next Roh Moo hyun or Lee Myung bak will find it next to impossible to emulate their success One downside to having a stable society is less social mobility since most good opportunities in life including jobs can be eventually bought with parents money these days Kim added Indeed an annual survey on local parents spending on private education revealed an ever widening spending gap between families earning more than 7 million won a month and those making less than 1 million won That gap has grown nearly 10 percent since 2007 to reach 453 000 won in 2009 Another set of data confirmed that the more parents spend on private education the better their children score at school Another poll by Career a job listing Web site of 1 124 Korean college students showed 86 percent of respondents believed family wealth can seriously improve one s job prospects A total of 68 8 percent said richer kids can spend more money on studying abroad or other private education while 21 5 percent said they re better positioned to improve their looks via cosmetic surgery or costly diet schemes Lee Ju ri a 27 year old hotel secretary said she at least agrees with the looks factor having applied for a sought after flight attendant job for nearly a year before giving up Looks can be quite important in the flight attendant hiring process and some girls have costly plastic surgery for more sophisticated finer looks said Lee who has earned a flurry of certificates with a hope to land a job someday including as a wine sommelier professional secretary service manager and airline ticket system manager Me I sometimes couldn t sleep at night just thinking about my student loan debts she said Lee financed her own college tuition for the final two years by taking out bank loans and working odd jobs Those included handing out advertising flyers on the street selling vitamin pills at drug stores teaching English to elementary school kids at hagwon and waitressing at an Outback Steakhouse Many often paid below minimum wage Yet Lee still has outstanding debt from her student loans of more than 10 million won managing only to pay back interest with her meager income She wants to get married to her old boyfriend a drug company employee but has no idea how to afford a wedding and ever soaring housing prices without taking out new loans I just can t picture myself getting married or paying back all these debts anytime soon she said I tried pretty hard to be successful but I think the dragons from a creek will be history soon To revive Korea s dragons the researcher Byun suggests the government work harder to encourage youngsters to set up their own businesses and ease rigid labor flexibility here stressing more market flexibility tends to create more jobs in a wider variety of forms That also means it would become easier for companies to hire or sack employees depending on the situation with more training opportunities available for those between jobs European countries while making the labor market more flexible also enhanced job training programs for people while Japan only made its labor market flexible and did little for job training he said Our present for now looks similar to Japan s past but the future may look different depending on the job training opportunities Those future bureaucratic changes are little help to Chang and her peers who right now are feeling their career plans slip away in a world where connections are everything and a good college diploma isn t nearly enough to achieve middle class comfort Most of her college friends with wealthier families or well educated college professor parents are no longer in Korea as many are studying at Ivy League schools in the United States with expenses of at least 100 million won a year They want to become professors or go to bigger better paying and upscale architecture firms said Chang They somehow end up dreaming bigger having bigger plans and loftier goals while all I worry about is just basic survival By Jung Ha won hawon joongang co kr Copyrights ⓒ JoongangIlbo Joins com All rights reserved News Analysis With youth unemployment soaring a good education is no longer a key to upward mobilityBefore she graduated from college in 2008 Robin Chang was fairly confident about her future With a bachelor s degree from Korea s top architecture department at Hongik University the 28 year old envisioned a comfortable middle class life like her government employee parents or perhaps even a step up in the world if she worked hard enough But all those aspirations started to crumble when she got her first job at a small architectural office a typical career step for graduates like her and the grim realities of post graduate life set in Her employer squeezed by the recession soon started putting off paychecks which forced her to quit about a year later after several months of overdue salary Chang soon realized that it was hard to land a job in her profession offering steady pay not to mention a lucrative one After months of job hunting and financial struggle Chang turned in desperation to a job she hadn t performed even in college working part time at a neighborhood coffee shop with hourly pay of 4 200 won $3 78 barely over the minimum wage It s a temporary thing until I find a real job said Chang who has sent out resumes during the day and worked at the coffee shop every night for the past five months She s not starving but in her new situation she has to cut every expense except absolute essentials like basic groceries and room rent Even hanging out with friends costs too much money so I try to stay at home except when working she said Chang s situation is just one example of the growing frustration among young Koreans who face dim career prospects thwarting their expectations of a comfortable middle class lifestyle The poverty that once beset Korea is history thanks to the postwar baby boomers the heroes of the country s transformation from one of the world s poorest nations into its 15th largest economy Many young Koreans have grown up watching their parents build their wealth from scratch through decades of arduous labor that coincided with the unprecedented economic boom from the 1960s to the 80s But unlike their parents who enjoyed relatively abundant job opportunities and great upward mobility in postwar society young Koreans are faced with slower economic growth producing fewer new jobs and more rigid status structures The result The relative meritocracy that nurtured the indomitable can do spirit of their parents generation is increasingly considered an irrelevant myth by young Koreans who now find themselves stuck between yesterday s dreams and today s reality And the growing ranks of jobless youth are posing a major challenge for Seoul policy makers struggling to ease the plunging marriage and birth rates which are considered partial byproducts of employment conditions In recent months Korea s jobless rate has climbed to levels not seen for nearly a decade and youth unemployment has risen even more quickly Five percent of people could not find work in January the highest since March 2001 and the jobless rate for the population aged 20 to 29 those fresh out of high school and college was 9 8 percent in February the highest since 10 1 percent in January 2000 The government blamed the unusually high number on graduation season saying unemployment typically spikes in February since that s when new school graduates start to swarm the job market Yet youth unemployment in the second month of this year was only higher in February 1999 when the 1997 98 Asian financial crisis pushed the figure to 13 4 percent Even considering seasonal factors young workers are experiencing a crisis In this new climate some like Chang are turning to temporary part time work while others who have lost hope are giving up on the job hunt and relying on whatever they can extract from the government and their parents Many of these young people are not counted by official unemployment numbers Hyundai Economic Research Institute estimated the number of Korean freeters a Japanese expression for people lacking full time employment and working at unskilled low paid part time jobs is rising to 4 78 million as of 2008 including 1 36 million aged 15 to 29 from 3 81 million in 2003 an increase of 25 percent State statistics showed the number of Koreans aged 15 to 34 who are resting meaning not engaged in employment job hunting or training at 430 000 in 2009 a steady increase from 330 000 in 2004 set against an overall 7 percent decrease in the size of the age group as a whole The young and jobless unlike older laborers who have Korea s notoriously militant labor unions to fight against their restructuring lack a collective voice to represent themselves or push their agenda with the authorities Yet the ever worsening job market has led to a small rudimentary effort to rectify that problem Last month a group of about 80 youngsters declared they would establish a so called youth union to advocate on labor issues for young people who are unemployed or only partially employed and not covered by a union Anyone aged 15 to 39 is eligible to apply for the association which is the first labor group based on age Its role model is the General Freeter s Union a Japanese organization that works to protect the rights of young Japanese jobless and part time workers according to its founder My life itself is a case study of all kinds of part time work experiences from discount store clerk to cram school instructor said Kim Young kyung a 29 year old founder of the union in an interview with the Kookmin Ilbo daily newspaper last month Overdue pay was awfully common and even getting minimum wage was elusive Today s youngsters are stuck in a hopeless situation But none of them speaks out because they are so afraid doing so will make it harder for them to get decent jobs later she said Kim refused to talk to the JoongAng Daily since she said union members disagree with the conservative editorial stance of its Korean language counterpart the JoongAng Ilbo The Labor Ministry rejected the group s request to list itself as a formal labor union saying that some of its proclaimed goals including achieving inter Korean peace and democracy are political and unrelated to labor rights and many of its members belong to no workplace But even if the youth union has other motives sheer numbers bear out the need for something like it In 1990 33 2 percent of high school graduates went to college but that has gone up to 83 8 percent in 2008 intensifying cutthroat competition for an increasingly limited number of well paid white collar jobs I think more moves like the youth union will continue to pop up down the road said Byun Yang gyu a research fellow at Korea Economic Research Institute The more desperate the youngsters are they more they are bound to seek some collective voice or anything that can make their voices heard in any way Byun Yang gyu a research fellow at Korea Economic Research Institute said Korea s inflexible labor market where full time positions are still vehemently protected by labor unions means companies hit by a recession simply stop hiring newcomers rather than risk conflict with workers and massive severance packages Many young people also hold out for a rare job at one of Korea s household name conglomerates because there s no guarantee the country s smaller firms will ever grow and offer serious opportunities for advancement The state policies on small firms consider uncompetitive companies as weaklings that should be protected helping many of them limp on in that state for decades instead of collapsing or reinventing themselves Byun said If there is no hope that a small firm will grow into a midsized one and eventually a top dog what kind of young person would ever want to get a job there When the Miracle on the Han River was in full swing even Koreans born into poor less well educated families living in remote rural areas had a fair chance to climb the social ladder as long as they studied diligently made it to a prestigious college and worked hard Even President Lee Myung bak peddled cookies on the street to feed his family and worked as a garbage man to earn college tuition The late former President Roh Moo hyun was a poor farmer s son and could never afford college but taught himself and eventually passed the bar examination later becoming a star lawyer Thousands of self made Koreans like Lee and Roh were called dragons from a creek meaning a successful person from a humble background But dragons are increasingly extinct in modern Korea where expensive private education is a necessity to excel at school meaning children from well off families have much better access to prestigious colleges here and abroad putting them on the path to better jobs according to Kim Hisam a research fellow at Korea Development Institute Now in Korea whether or not one goes to college and which college they go to largely determines their career path marriage prospects and other aspects of life As the private education market developed parents economic status now has a deeper impact on the quality of education their children can get he said I m afraid now any poor youngsters dreaming of becoming the next Roh Moo hyun or Lee Myung bak will find it next to impossible to emulate their success One downside to having a stable society is less social mobility since most good opportunities in life including jobs can be eventually bought with parents money these days Kim added Indeed an annual survey on local parents spending on private education revealed an ever widening spending gap between families earning more than 7 million won a month and those making less than 1 million won That gap has grown nearly 10 percent since 2007 to reach 453 000 won in 2009 Another set of data confirmed that the more parents spend on private education the better their children score at school Another poll by Career a job listing Web site of 1 124 Korean college students showed 86 percent of respondents believed family wealth can seriously improve one s job prospects A total of 68 8 percent said richer kids can spend more money on studying abroad or other private education while 21 5 percent said they re better positioned to improve their looks via cosmetic surgery or costly diet schemes Lee Ju ri a 27 year old hotel secretary said she at least agrees with the looks factor having applied for a sought after flight attendant job for nearly a year before giving up Looks can be quite important in the flight attendant hiring process and some girls have costly plastic surgery for more sophisticated finer looks said Lee who has earned a flurry of certificates with a hope to land a job someday including as a wine sommelier professional secretary service manager and airline ticket system manager Me I sometimes couldn t sleep at night just thinking about my student loan debts she said Lee financed her own college tuition for the final two years by taking out bank loans and working odd jobs Those included handing out advertising flyers on the street selling vitamin pills at drug stores teaching English to elementary school kids at hagwon and waitressing at an Outback Steakhouse Many often paid below minimum wage Yet Lee still has outstanding debt from her student loans of more than 10 million won managing only to pay back interest with her meager income She wants to get married to her old boyfriend a drug company employee but has no idea how to afford a wedding and ever soaring housing prices without taking out new loans I just can t picture myself getting married or paying back all these debts anytime soon she said I tried pretty hard to be successful but I think the dragons from a creek will be history soon To revive Korea s dragons the researcher Byun suggests the government work harder to encourage youngsters to set up their own businesses and ease rigid labor flexibility here stressing more market flexibility tends to create more jobs in a wider variety of forms That also means it would become easier for companies to hire or sack employees depending on the situation with more training opportunities available for those between jobs European countries while making the labor market more flexible also enhanced job training programs for people while Japan only made its labor market flexible and did little for job training he said Our present for now looks similar to Japan s past but the future may look different depending on the job training opportunities Those future bureaucratic changes are little help to Chang and her peers who right now are feeling their career plans slip away in a world where connections are everything and a good college diploma isn t nearly enough to achieve middle class comfort Most of her college friends with wealthier families or well educated college professor parents are no longer in Korea as many are studying at Ivy League schools in the United States with expenses of at least 100 million won a year They want to become professors or go to bigger better paying and upscale architecture firms said Chang They somehow end up dreaming bigger having bigger plans and loftier goals while all I worry about is just basic survival By Jung Ha won hawon joongang co kr Copyrights ⓒ JoongangIlbo Joins com All rights reserved

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