Job seekers at the Growing Together Job Fair on April 28 in Seocho District, southern Seoul. [YONHAP]
Young people in Korea are increasingly being pushed into fixed-term jobs as openings for regular positions dry up, pointing to a labor market in which stable entry-level options are shrinking.
The number of young people newly entering regular jobs fell by 69,000 in 2025, according to a Korea Labor Institute report on Monday.
The number of young regular workers had already fallen by 43,000 in 2024, marking a second straight year of decline. By contrast, regular employment rose by about 110,000 among those ages 35 to 64 and by 90,000 among those 65 and older.
The report said the decline was significant even after accounting for the shrinking youth population.
Measured as a share of the youth population, newly hired regular workers fell by 0.5 percentage points, while the share of existing regular workers rose by 0.5 percentage points. That suggests the drop in new regular hiring was not simply the result of demographic change.
With regular jobs limited, youth self-employment also weakened. As of August of last year, the number of self-employed young people without employees fell by 64,000, while those with employees fell by 23,000, for a combined decline of 87,000. It was the first drop since 2018, and the scale of the decline was substantial.
Job seekers at the Growing Together Job Fair on April 28 in Seocho District, southern Seoul. [YONHAP]
The report said young people pushed out of regular jobs and self-employment ultimately flowed into fixed-term work, which are jobs that usually last for a maximum of 6 to 24 months. While new regular hires among young people fell by 69,000, newly hired full-time fixed-term workers rose by 54,000. The increase was seen across industries including education services, construction and health and welfare.
“With new regular hiring sluggish, it is presumed that the regular labor market was unable to absorb young people who left self-employment amid the economic slowdown,” the report said. “Against that backdrop, the increase in young fixed-term workers seen in 2025 needs to be understood.”
In effect, many young people appear to be choosing fixed-term work as a second-best option.
“The increase in full-time fixed-term work among young people appears to reflect both demand-side factors, with hiring for full-time fixed-term jobs expanding instead of regular positions, and supply-side factors, with young people unable to find regular jobs choosing fixed-term work as a second-best option,” the report said.
“Policy efforts need to be strengthened, including systematizing work experience, so that fixed-term employment can serve as a bridge to stable regular jobs.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
댓글
0