Changes in Early Labor Market Outcomes among Young College Graduates in South Korea

Abstract

The unemployment rate among youths (age 20–29) in South Korea has increased sharply from 6.6 percent in 2002 to 9.8 percent in 2016. At the same time, the college entrance rate remains around 70 percent, and skill mismatch among college goers is a critical policy concern. Little attention has been paid to temporal change in labor market outcomes among college graduates or to the kinds of graduates who are particularly vulnerable to labor market uncertainty. We investigate how labor market experiences for college graduates have changed over time using data from nine different graduating cohorts of the Graduate Occupational Mobility Survey (GOMS). The results reveal that the proportion of those searching for a job has increased over time, and that even for those who were employed, job quality deteriorated. We also find a growing gap in labor market outcomes by reputation of graduating universities and college major.