SKY Surpassed by Sungkyunkwan University for 1st Place
Maintains Top Employment Rate as Well
Universities are cradles of scholarship, but for ordinary students, they serve as the first stepping stone toward employment. For college students living in 2024, employment is an immediate reality that must be overcome. So, what about the employment rates of graduates from various universities?
Are the top-tier universities commonly called SKY overwhelmingly advantageous in the job market as well? Using the data from the University Information Disclosure System 'Daehak Alimi' database (DB), we compared the employment rates of 15 major domestic universities (Konkuk University, Kyung Hee University, Korea University, Dongguk University, Sogang University, Seoul National University, University of Seoul, Sungkyunkwan University, Sookmyung Women’s University, Yonsei University, Ewha Womans University, Inha University, Chung-Ang University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Hanyang University, in alphabetical order).
Top University in Employment Rate, 'Sungkyunkwan University' Surpasses SKY
According to the latest available DB from 2022, the university with the highest employment rate was not Seoul National University, Yonsei University, or Korea University, but Sungkyunkwan University (78.5%). Following it were Sogang University (71.9%), Yonsei University (71.4%), and Hanyang University (71.4%).
Sungkyunkwan University has maintained the number one employment rate among top-tier four-year universities since 2015. Notably, Sungkyunkwan University is also famous for partnering with Samsung Electronics, the largest domestic company, to establish a contract department related to semiconductors. The employment rate at Sungkyunkwan University continues to rise. In 2021, its employment rate was 76%, marking an increase of 2.5 percentage points (p) within a year.
On the other hand, most of the other top 15 universities showed either stagnant or slightly decreased employment rates compared to the previous year. However, the employment rates of these top universities significantly exceeded the national average employment rate for all universities (64.2%). Among the 15 universities, only Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (63.9%) had an employment rate slightly below the average.
Retention Employment Rate as an Indicator of Job Quality
It is difficult to judge which university offers better employment opportunities based solely on employment rates. This is because some universities have increasingly resorted to so-called 'loopholes' amid fierce competition. These include including short-term part-time jobs in employment statistics or providing internship subsidies to companies where students have not actually been employed.
Even without such loopholes, some departments specialized in job seeking naturally report higher employment rates. For example, the average employment rate of domestic junior colleges (71.3%) is much higher than that of four-year universities. Therefore, when evaluating university employment rates, supplementary indicators should also be considered. One representative supplementary indicator is the 'retention employment rate.'
The retention employment rate measures whether graduates continue to work at their jobs one year after employment (the 4th retention employment rate). Using this indicator, it is possible to somewhat distinguish whether the jobs obtained by graduates are of high quality. Among the top 15 domestic universities, the highest retention employment rate was also Sungkyunkwan University (91.1%). It was followed by Sogang University (90%), Korea University (89.3%), University of Seoul (89.3%), Yonsei University (88.9%), and Seoul National University (88.3%).
Unlike the general employment rate, which ranges broadly from the 70% to 60% range, the retention employment rate for all top 15 universities was recorded in the mid to high 80% range. Although the employment rates themselves may differ, this means that most graduates who succeeded in finding jobs continued to keep them. It can be seen as entering workplaces with high satisfaction.
University Employment Rates Also Reveal Traces of COVID-19
The average employment rate trends of general universities and vocational colleges over the past four years.
Statistics on domestic university employment rates also reveal the scars left by the COVID-19 pandemic on young adults entering society. The average employment rate for general domestic universities fell from 64.4% in 2019 to 63.4% in 2020, a 1 percentage point drop, and further dropped significantly by 2.3 percentage points to 61.1% in 2021, when strict social distancing measures were in place. In 2022, it rebounded to 64.2%, but still did not catch up to the peak of 2019.
The average employment rate for junior colleges showed a similar trend to that of general universities: 71.6% in 2019, 71.3% in 2020, 69.1% in 2021, and 71.3% in 2022. According to actual data from Statistics Korea, the youth unemployment rate in January 2021 reached 5.7%, exceeding 5% for the first time in 20 years since 2001. Due to the difficulty in job seeking, the number of job seekers who responded that they 'just took a break' reached 2.71 million, the worst level ever recorded.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
