South Korea's Unemployed College Graduates Hit Five-Year High In Q2

According to Yonhap, the number of unemployed college graduates in South Korea rose to a five-year high in the second quarter as the job market for young adults tightened. The number of people with a bachelor's degree or higher who were out of work reached 481,000 in the April-June period, up 39,000 from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. That was the highest second-quarter level since 2021, when 521,000 graduates were unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. People in their 20s and 30s made up 64.2% of all unemployed college graduates, or 309,000. An official at the data ministry said the higher unemployment rate indicated the labor market was affected by the Middle East crisis in the second quarter. Total unemployment stood at 855,000 in the April-June period, up 11,000 from a year earlier.