Undergraduates, job-hunters with less job-related competence, are experiencing a disadvantageous starting line. It is due to the unrest employment resulting from superfl uous education level and transition into “irregular recruitment”. Meanwhile, Konkuk University pretends as if they solved the job crisis by excessively investing in student start-ups. For students, the unrest circumstance forces them to elongate the education period itself. This Bulletin Comment criticizes the KU’s runaway to “support of Undergraduates” and students’ runaway to education suspension.

① Undergraduates, nowhere to go: the job-market dwindles

What makes them hard to get a job?

Education superflux

      Since 2000, the rate of underemployment1) is steadily increasing. Reportedly 30 percent of university graduates could not get a highlyeducated job, a job that corresponds to their level of education such as managers, specialists. The main reason is because the number of university graduates overwhelms the number of highly-educated job. In fact, the number of university graduates increased by 4.3 percent from 2000 to 2018, but the highly-educated jobs only increased by 2.8 percent. In other words, graduating universities no longer means being “highly-educated”. The problem here is that most of the underemployed people could not get “higher” educated jobs even after they gained job-related experience. Moreover, the average wage was 38 percent lower compared to those in the highly-educated jobs with the same level of education.

Disadvantageous job-market for inexperienced undergraduates

     According to the Research & Research poll, only 32.2 percent of the top selling 500 South Korean enterprises plan to recruit in 2021. Also, 63.6 percent, which is 11.1 percent point higher than 2020, changed from “open recruitment” to irregular recruitment What diff ers irregular recruitment from open recruitment? Irregular recruitment is hiring people when the enterprise needs one, which also means they do not hire an excessive amount of workforce. University graduates are relatively less experienced than people who have already been hired.

     Since in irregular recruitment university graduates get to compete with experienced candidates, this method plays disadvantageous to university graduates. In the case of open recruitment, even if the job adaptability and expertise were lacking, they had a chance to be employed due to the fixed large amount of employment plan. However, in irregular employment the hiring amount is a few, hence inexperienced university graduates run behind experienced workers.

     In Korea, there are about 350,000 university graduates annually. At this point where many jobs are downsizing due to unmanning, automation, and poor economy, graduating universities does not merit anymore in the job market. Moreover, university students lost places to experience jobs since most jobs hire experienced people. What an irony.

② How does KU counteract the unemployment crisis?

     The employment rate is decreasing, and the unemployment crisis has been getting worse. As one of the solutions, universities and the government stimulate student start-ups.

     In 2020, KU reached 30 student entrepreneurs, resulting in fourth place in Seoul and seventh in South Korea. Furthermore, KU invested 6.1 billion won only in 2021, and the amount accounts for a quarter of the entire scholarship in 2017. However, many experts say student start-ups cannot be an ultimate solution for the unemployment crisis.

KU supports student start-up, a refuge from the unemployment crisis

     According to the Korea Startup Index 2019, only 3.9 percent of South Korean start-up entrepreneurs are in their 20s. Considering that only 29.2 percent of startup enterprises survive after five years, it is rare for undergraduate students to succeed sustainably. Yoon Dong-yeol, a professor at KU college of Business, insisted that “Increase in the number of undergraduate student start-up entrepreneur is not desirable since they should compete with existing business owners in the red ocean”. Higher Education in Korea says the average employees of undergraduate student start-ups is 1.2 person, which does not solve unemployment because it does not “create” net amount of jobs. Furthermore, one-third of South Korean undergraduate start-ups recorded zero profits in 2018. Compared to before COVID-19, 261 percent applied more to Pre-Startup Package from the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development. Undergraduate students should consider whether they apply to start-up for a way out from the unemployment crisis or genuine interest.

     Despite the unrealistic way of solving the unemployment crisis, KU still plans to expand investment related to start-up facilities and fi nancial support such as “KU start-up zone” and “start-up nurturing center”. The investment should be revised and spent for students’ successful job-hunting.

How should KU counteract to unemployment crisis?

Actively enhance Job huntable qualification

     Universities should make workforce that enterprises want. If so, what is the common talent that enterprises pursue? The future society and many enterprises point out the significance of IT competency. Currently, KU requires students to enroll in a class learning Python, a programming language, for graduation required course. Yet, the course only handles basic programming knowledge which is hardly applicable on students’ own. KU should provide more software convergence programs in overall courses to meet the corporates’ needs. In fact, Samsung recently provided a SW education program to job hunters regardless their majors and the residence. The program provided educations programming languages which are applicable in the fi eld. It was successful since the participants reached 71 percent of employment success in 2018.

Resolve the unemployment crisis sustainably

     KU should expand the cooperation between KU and enterprises. If KU provides quantitatively more field placements to students, many students can receive more opportunities for job experience. Then students would be relatively more qualifi ed for a job. It is important for KU to make more connections between enterprises and students. Although KU does run enterprise-university cooperation programs, students’ urge to participate is decreasing. KU recently reduced the complementary credits for those who participate in field placement. This means that students would hesitate to take field placement since they cannot take suitable credits even though they must spend more than either 20 or 40 days.

     No university has a clear solution to the unemployment crisis. However, it is wrong to sugar-coat as if KU supports the majority of students’ career pathways by investing on student start-ups. Undergraduate student start-ups can diversify the career path but in a small probability. KU should also invest in the equivalent amount and stand by the majority of students, not a few of them.

③ How do Undergraduate students counteract the unemployment crisis?

Education elongation

Entering graduate school

     The number of undergraduate students who attend graduate school to avoid the unemployment crisis is increasing. In 2020, the number of applicants for graduate school in South Korea reached the highest number. Chae Changkyun, a senior researcher from Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, said “There is an escape entering in the unemployed circumstances to seek for the place to belong to”. However, compared to the increasing amount of graduate school applicants, only a few apply for doctoral degree. From 2017 to 2019, only 10 percent applied for the doctoral degree in Chungcheong region general graduate school. Furthermore, the master’s degree itself provides a higher possibility of higher-paid jobs. Application to the graduate schools does not seem to be motivated by pure interest in academe. In this regard, one of the Human Resource (HR) managers in a mid-sized company insisted “Many enter graduate school to just fill the resume. However, there are some cases where the scheme fails due to vague career pathway”.

Gap semester and graduation suspension

     Have you heard of sophomore disease2)? It is the sophomore’s depression derived from anxiety for their future after entering university. Students enjoy their freshman life in their first year in university, but the disease appears when they become sophomores. It seems the disease spreads at universities in general. 29.5 percent of freshmen, 46.7 percent of sophomore, 50 percent of junior, and 53.6 percent of senior reportedly plans for a gap semester. A gap semester means taking a semester off. To put a halt to education, students can also suspend their graduation. According to the Ministry of Education, the number of students who suspended graduation in 2019 increased by 1000 compared to 2017. The reason was to fill the resume, refresh and rest, do job-related activities, and prepare for the government employee exam.

     For university students to graduate a four-year-course university, women took 4 years and 5.9 months, and men took 6 years and 1.1 months on average in 2020 according to Statistics Korea. However, 43.3 percent of HR managers insisted the applicant will receive unfavorable personnel evaluation if the vacancy is not reasonable. Since the number of students taking a gap year or suspending graduation is increasing, students should react wisely if they are running away from the unemployment crisis.

     Of course, there are many people spending their gap period wisely preparing for their career pathways. However, the number of students taking a gap years is increasing, and the consideration of whether their running away is essential to be made. It is because the longer graduation takes time, the higher risk students may experience.

Conclusion

     The job market is shrinking, and universities and students do not have a clear solution. KU invests the unreasonable amount of money on student start-up supports and pretends as if they handed solutions to their career pathways. However, not only is it unsustainable but it also rarely lives up to the money. KU should invest more not for minority of students but for majority of students. Furthermore, in the unemployment crisis, more and more students choose to extend their education. Since the elongated education is disadvantageous, students should mull over their unreasonable suspension.

By Heo Cha-ryeong, Editor-in-Chief / chaline0329@konkuk.ac.kr