”No work, no job preparation”... 82,000 young people in South Korea ”just took a break” for over three years

It was found that among young people who have not been employed for more than three years, 80,000 have taken a break without making any special preparations for employment.
According to the "Clodata," as of May this year, there were 238,000 young people who had graduated from their last school (including completion and dropout) but had not been employed for more than three years. This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the highest figure in the past three years (2022-2024). As for the main activity of these young people, 82,000 young people (34.2%) answered that they "just spent time at home, etc."
This means that more than one in three young people who had been unemployed for three years or more were simply wasting their time without undergoing vocational training, preparing for employment exams, or actively searching for work.
In addition, 28.9% (69,000 people) said they had "prepared for a job-related exam," and 10.7% said they had "raised children or done housework."
In order of popularity, 4.8% (35,000 people) said they had been out of work, followed by 4.6% (11,000 people) who said they had been preparing to go on to college. Looking at the length of time they had been out of work, the highest proportion of young people who had been out of work for three years or more was those who had simply rested at home.
Among young people who have not been employed for three or more years, the number of young people who simply rested at home gradually decreased from 96,000 in 2021 to 84,000 in 2022 and 80,000 in 2023, and is expected to reach 82,000 this year.
The number of cases has increased to 1,000, indicating an upward trend. Compared to 2018 (54,000) and 2019 (64,000), which were before the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the number is still higher in absolute terms.
Given the declining trend in the elderly population, the implications of the increase are even greater. Even if they want to find work and are able to, they find it difficult to find a job because the wages and other conditions are not right for them.
The number of young people who have given up on finding a job is also on the rise. The monthly average number of young people who have given up on finding a job from January to May was 120,179, an increase of about 11,000 from the same period last year (108,525).
Of the total number of people who had given up looking for work (387,000 people), young people accounted for 31.1%.