Some 45,000 graduates of two-year and four-year colleges in South Korea may fail to land jobs starting in 2018 as the country's service-oriented economic structure demands less employees, a government report said Wednesday.
According to the labor outlook for the 2008-2018 period, a total of 25.66 million people are expected to be employed in 2018, marking an annual increase of 208,000 from 23.58 million in 2008. The employment rate is also projected to rise to 60.2 percent from 59.5 percent in the same period.
Despite these increases, about 45,000 college graduates each year may fail to find jobs starting in 2008, raising the need to weed out uncompetitive institutions of higher learning, the report said.
The scarcity of jobs will worsen as South Korea's economy rapidly transitions from a manufacturing to a service-based economy, creating less demand for labor, the report said.
In 2018, 72.5 percent of employed workers are expected to work in service companies, while only 14.7 percent will be hired by manufacturing businesses, it noted.
The report also said that unless domestic colleges and universities are restructured, enrollment quotas are projected to exceed the number of high school graduates by 200,000 in 2023.
Last year, about 400 two-year and four-year colleges in Korea produced some 630,000 graduates.//Yonhap
