46.6% of Gwangju Youth Say "Great Difficulty in Finding Jobs"

‘Intend to Settle Locally’ 87.9%
‘Awareness of Gwangju City Youth Policy’ 23.2%
■ Gwangju City Council, ‘Youth Policy’ Public Opinion Survey Results

Nearly half of the youth in the Gwangju area are experiencing significant difficulties in securing jobs and starting businesses.

The Education and Culture Committee of the Gwangju City Council (Chairman Myeong Jin) conducted the "2024 Gwangju Youth Policy Public Opinion Survey" targeting 727 youths aged 19 to 39 residing in Gwangju. The results showed that 46.6% of respondents identified job-related issues as their greatest difficulty, and 69.5% selected job policies as the most important youth policy.

Regarding the youth policies promoted by Gwangju City, only 23.2% of respondents answered that they were aware of them, indicating generally low policy awareness among the youth themselves.

Among youths who have participated in youth policies, satisfaction was highest with housing policies, scoring 67.28 out of 100, followed by job policies (61.75 points) and education policies (60.48 points).

Among the youths surveyed, 87.9% expressed their intention to continue settling in Gwangju. The main reasons (multiple responses allowed) were having family, friends, or acquaintances in the area (66.8%) and attending school or working in Gwangju (55.2%). In contrast, only a small number cited good cultural and leisure infrastructure (5.9%), favorable educational conditions (2.5%), or good welfare policies (2.22%) as reasons.

Myeong Jin, Chairman of the Education and Culture Committee of the Gwangju City Council, stated, "This survey served as an opportunity to reaffirm the job-related difficulties faced by our local youth. More active promotion is needed to ensure that the many youth policies currently being implemented by Gwangju City are not overlooked or unused by the intended beneficiaries."

Meanwhile, this public opinion survey was commissioned by the Gwangju City Council to the professional polling agency Poll Insight and was conducted online from October 18 to 28, targeting 727 youths aged 19 to 39 residing in Gwangju. The sampling error is ±3.63 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.