사진 확대

The percentage of people who couldn't find a job even after obtaining a doctorate degree exceeded 30% for the first time.

According to Yonhap News on the 29th, 66.7% of the 14,498 respondents are currently employed or confirmed to be employed, according to the National Data Agency's national statistics portal "2025 Survey of New Doctorate Degrees in Korea."

This is the result of a survey conducted by the Korea Vocational Competency Research Institute of all Ph.D. graduates who graduated from universities nationwide in February of the year and August of the previous year.

Among those who obtained a doctorate, 27.7% were unemployed (unemployed) without a job, and 5.6% of the economically inactive population were neither employed nor unemployed. A total of 33.3% of the "unemployed" who have not found a job while looking for a job or are not looking for a job. It is the first time that it has exceeded 30% since the related survey began in 2014.

The proportion of new doctors unemployed was 25.9% by 2018, in the mid-20% range, but it soared to 29.3% in 2019. Since then, it has been in the 28-29% range and has jumped to the early-mid 30% range last year.

Last year, the increase in the proportion of new doctors' unemployed was 3.7 percentage points (p), the largest ever. The previous record was 3.4%p in 2019.

The main factor is the increase in the "non-economically active population" who do not even look for jobs without a job. The proportion of the unemployed rose only 1.1%p from 26.6% in 2024 to 27.7% last year, but the proportion of the economically inactive population nearly doubled, increasing 2.6%p from 3.0% to 5.6%.

This seems to be because there are not enough "doctor-level" high-quality jobs such as full-time professors, full-time government-funded researchers, and full-time R&D workers at large companies.

As the school-age population decreased, universities, which are the primary absorption destinations for doctors, reduced the number of full-time teachers and instead increased the recruitment of part-time instructors.

According to the Ministry of Education's "2025 Basic Education Statistics" survey, the number of full-time teachers in higher education institutions such as universities, colleges, and graduate schools was 86,701, down 617 (0.7%) from the previous year, but the number of non-executive teachers was 153,923, up 4,261 (2.8%).

New doctors among young people suffered the most difficulty in finding employment. Of the 569 respondents under the age of 30 who earned a doctorate last year, 51.1 percent were unemployed, the largest proportion since the start of the related survey.

The increase in the economically inactive population was also more pronounced among young people. In 2024, the number of economically inactive people among those under the age of 30 was 2.6%, but last year it soared to 7.9%.

Even the doctor could not avoid the trend of shrinking youth employment. The employment rate of young people stood at 43.8 percent in May, down 2.4 percentage points from a year ago. It has been downhill for 25 months since May 2024.