South Korea 2025 Youth Employment Rate Decline: First Drop in Five Years
South Korea's youth employment rate for those in their 20s fell to 60.2% in 2025, marking the first decline in five years due to a weak job market and population shrinkage.
For the first time in five years, South Korea's youth job market has hit a significant wall. According to data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, the employment rate for people in their 20s stood at 60.2% in 2025, down 0.8 percentage point from the previous year. It marks the first on-year decline since the 2020 pandemic-induced slump.
South Korea 2025 Youth Employment Rate Decline and Demographic Shifts
The number of employed individuals in their 20s totaled 3.44 million last year, a decrease of 170,000 from a year earlier. This downward trend has accelerated over the past three years, widening from a drop of 82,000 in 2023 to 124,000 in 2024.
While a shrinking population is a key factor, the decline in employment is outpacing the demographic shift. Yang Jun-seok, a professor at the Catholic University of Korea, noted that many young people are now opting to wait until their 30s to secure higher-quality opportunities rather than entering a weak labor market.
Limited Mobility in Large Conglomerates
Despite a slight increase in total jobs at large conglomerates—reaching 4.43 million in 2024—the share of jobs held by existing workers rose to 84.4%. This high retention rate indicates limited mobility for new jobseekers, creating a bottleneck for the younger generation.
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