Over half of unemployed young adults in South Korea report burnout, analysis shows

More than half of unemployed young adults in South Korea have experienced burnout, compared with about a third of those with jobs, according to an analysis released Monday.

Among unemployed people aged 19-34, 52.7 percent reported experiencing burnout, 1.6 times the 32.4 percent recorded among employed people in the same age group, the Federation of Korean Industries said.

The business lobby’s analysis was based on microdata from the 2024 Survey on the Lives of Young People conducted by the Office for Government Policy Coordination. The survey describes burnout as a state of emotional exhaustion caused by work, job preparation, study or other demands.

The longer the job search, the higher the reported rate. Among unemployed young people who had been looking for work for at least a year, 61.8 percent said they had experienced burnout.

Employment stability also appeared to make a difference.

The burnout rate among young temporary and daily workers stood at 41.1 percent, compared with 29.6 percent among regular employees, whose employment contracts generally run for at least one year or have no fixed end date.

Anxiety about career prospects was the leading cause of burnout among both unemployed people and those in insecure employment.

Among unemployed respondents who had experienced burnout, 68.4 percent cited career anxiety as the main cause, but doubts about their work or job search accounted for another 9.9 percent. Work-life balance was the third most common reason, at 7.1 percent.

Career anxiety was also cited by 57 percent of temporary and daily workers who experienced burnout. Another 13.6 percent blamed excessive workloads, while 12.1 percent cited skepticism about their work.

The causes were more evenly distributed among regular employees. Excessive workloads ranked first at 23.2 percent, followed by career anxiety at 20.5 percent and skepticism about their work at 19.9 percent.

The FKI said difficulties finding work and insecurity after entering the labor market appear to be deepening burnout among young people.

It called for expanded vocational training, employment counseling and financial support for job seekers.

Separate government data underscore the challenges facing younger workers.

As of May, 605,000 young people had gone at least a year without finding their first job after completing school, accounting for 48.6 percent of those who had yet to secure employment. That was the highest proportion since 2009.

The number of regular employees aged 15-29 has also declined for four consecutive years, falling from 2.56 million in May 2022 to 2.12 million this May.

By comparison, the number of regular employees aged 60 or older reached 2.2 million, surpassing the younger group for the first time since comparable data became available in 2014. The two statistics use a narrower definition of youth than the burnout analysis, which covered people aged 19-34.