South Korea saw its number of non-regular workers with four-year college degrees grow to an all-time high in August, sparking concerns about the quality of jobs being created, reports The Korea Herald, citing data from Statistics Korea. The data found that the number of workers holding degrees from four-year colleges but employed on temporary or part-time contracts stood at 2.84 million, up 320,000, or 12.7% from a year earlier. It marked the highest since the agency started to compile such data in 2003.

The portion of non-regular employees who have college degrees increased 1.2% over the year to 35.2% of the total 8.06 million irregular workers in the same month. By gender, women accounted for 56.7%. The government data indicated that the nation’s labour market, hit hard by the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, has reduced good-quality job opportunities for educated Koreans, especially those in their 20s and 30s. The government, however, has lauded its policy efforts for the labour market recovery given that the number of employed people reached 27.68 million in September, 671,000 more than a year earlier, the largest job additions since March 2014, according to the statistics agency.

“The latest recovery in the hiring market was largely driven the state-led program on short-term jobs and demand for health care services amid rapid aging. As major companies reduced their hiring of new employees, a growing number of young job seekers resorted to becoming irregular workers with low pay and less job security,” said Shin Se-don, an economics professor at Sookmyung Women’s University. “The government’s job creation projects failed to trigger the private sector to follow suit and hire more. Policymakers should speed up deregulation to prompt private companies to create more jobs, particularly in service sectors. It is basically the role of companies to offer quality jobs.”