Autumn is proving to be the cruelest season for 29-year-old Kang Seung-bum, scrambling to find work in South Korea's worst economic year since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
"I applied for dozens of companies only to fail. Now, I'm afraid I could fail again," sighed Kang, who completes a master's degree in economics in February.
Two years ago he graduated from university but could not find a job. So he sought shelter at graduate school. Now, as he makes his second try to join the job market, the situation is even less promising.
"A master's degree is no longer an advantage, it's an obstacle," he said.
Experts say Kang is not alone. Even though the country's economy is doing better than many of its regional peers, the number of first-time job seekers is overwhelming the number of available jobs.
"About 800,000 young people are competing for only 50,000 jobs this year," said Lee Jung-joo, chairman of Recruit Inc, a job information service firm.
"It's a really tough deal."
The number of job applicants for 300 openings at the nation's largest car group, Hyundai Motor Co, and Kia Motors Co hit 52,000, including 160 PhDs.
Nearly 800 held master's degrees from foreign colleges and 6,200 had master's degrees from local colleges.
Twenty-somethings have it toughest
In a field crowded with the over-qualified, fresh college graduates are particularly hard pressed to gain a toehold.
As many as 300 of the 16,000 applicants for 200 recent openings at Hanvit Bank were qualified accountants.
South Koreans in their 20s -- the so-called "second baby boom," or children of those who were born in the first baby boom that followed the 1950-53 Korean War -- are producing some of the most alarming unemployment statistics.
The jobless rate of those in their 20s stood at 6.3 percent in October, twice the national unemployment rate. They accounted for 38 percent of the total jobless of 699,000 in the month.
New school leavers and those giving the job market a second try face a market where workers are being laid off and where companies are freezing their hiring to cope with the weak economy, experts said.
A recent survey by Recruit showed that only 15 of the nation's largest 100 "chaebol" conglomerates plan to recruit workers from next February's crop of new college graduates.
"The Korean job market is undergoing a structural change," Recruit's Lee said. "Companies are turning their eyes to a skilled and experienced workforce instead of fresh college graduates, squeezing out the unskilled youngsters."
Traditionally, the less-skilled, new workforce filled 90 percent of new jobs, but this year about half of new jobs went to experienced workers.
FLIGHT TO EXPERIENCE
LG Electronics Inc, the nation's leading home appliance maker, plans to increase hiring of experienced people to 30 percent of total recruitment this year, from 20 percent last year.
"Corporate concern, especially at this juncture, is to improve competitiveness through a timely recruitment of the best human capital," said Han Man-jin, a senior official at the human resources department of LG Electronics.
"Training employees with no previous work experience costs tens of billions of won a year," he said.
The job-hunting calendar has become less predictable.
For many years, large Korean firms always had job openings at a set time each year. Now, a third of the top 100 firms plans to recruit only when there are vacancies.
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