“Youth employment policy focuses on metropolitan area and college graduates… First career work experience in the region is required.”

Since the government's youth employment policy is designed to focus on those in the metropolitan area and college graduates, it was suggested that customized policy support is needed for young people living in the region who have not graduated from high school.

On the 13th, the Economic, Social and Labor Committee (Economics and Labor Committee) held a joint meeting of the 'Youth Committee' and the 'Youth Job Hope Committee' to discuss the current status of local youth jobs and ways to improve them.

As a result of the Youth Committee of the Employment and Labor Committee collecting opinions from young people through on-site meetings, there were voices saying that the discussion structure and delivery system for youth employment policy is biased towards young people in the metropolitan area and college graduates, and that young people who have not graduated from local high schools are not properly reflected in policy design.

In particular, due to the concentration of recruitment infrastructure in the metropolitan area, young people in non-metropolitan areas were found to spend 800,000 to 1.5 million won in transportation and lodging expenses every month to attend job fairs and information sessions or take qualification tests.

The diagnosis continued that the local youth employment problem is a matter of ‘connection and quality’ rather than a simple lack of ‘number of jobs’.

Young people who attended the meeting complained, “Even though there are companies and jobs in the region, there is a lack of information channels to explore them.”

In addition, there was a young man who said, "Even if they want to settle down in the region and get a production job, they are hesitant to apply because there is no way to know the actual work performed or the working environment."

The cost of information inconsistency directly led to early retirement.

As of May this year, the average length of employment for young people in their first job was only 1 year and 6.8 months. The most common reason for quitting one's first job was 'dissatisfaction with working conditions such as pay and working hours' at 44.4%.

Based on these discussions, the Youth Job Hope Committee proposed providing employment information through an independent information organization and mandating notification of hiring status.

In order to resolve the blind spot of local youth, it was deemed necessary to expand the participation of local and vulnerable youth in the Future Tomorrow Work Experience Project and to conduct a pilot project for 'Regional First Career Work Experience'.

This pilot project provides opportunities for local high school graduates who are unemployed after graduation to adapt to organizational life, explore jobs, and carry out projects for 6 months to 1 year, and the government supports the labor costs of participating youth and links them to employment.

Handasri, the chairman of the Youth Committee, pointed out, “As the existing work and experience business is centered around universities, high school graduates and long-term unemployed young people are being left in a blind spot,” and “With a structure that favors those with experience, the employment threshold for young people without internship experience is getting higher.”

In addition, the committee suggested that it is necessary to expand and reorganize joint projects between the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Education in the vocational education innovation zone, support the transition period after graduation, establish a job base for local youth, manage the quality of first jobs, and convert local youth policy performance indicators.

Based on the results of this discussion, the Economic and Social Affairs Committee plans to develop it into a task to improve the local youth employment system.