Average Monthly Income of College Graduates is 3.09 Million KRW
Employment Gap Widens Between Capital Region and Non-Capital Regions
Last year, the average employment rate for university and graduate school graduates was 70.3%. Looking at the employment rates by field, the medical field had the highest employment rate, while the humanities field had the lowest.
On the 26th, the Ministry of Education and the Korea Educational Development Institute announced the results of the "2023 Higher Education Institution Graduate Employment Statistics Survey," which analyzed the employment status as of December 31 of last year for 646,062 graduates from nationwide higher education institutions in August 2022 and February 2023. According to the survey, 389,668 of all graduates were employed, representing 70.3% of the employment target group (554,281). This is an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous year's survey (69.6%).
Regarding this, the Ministry of Education explained that this survey included for the first time graduates from broadcasting and communication universities, cyber universities, and distance universities, making simple comparisons with previous years' employment rates difficult. Previous surveys only targeted graduates from general universities, education universities, industrial universities, junior colleges, various schools, technical colleges, and general graduate schools.
Looking at the types of employment for last year’s graduates, 88.5% were enrolled in workplace health insurance, followed by ▲freelancers at 7.4%, ▲one-person startups at 2.9%, ▲overseas workers at 0.6%, and ▲individual creative activity workers at 0.5%. The proportions of one-person startups, freelancers, and overseas workers slightly increased compared to the previous year, while workplace health insurance enrollees and individual creative activity workers decreased.
Employment rates by school type showed graduate schools at the highest with 82.4%, followed by junior colleges at 72.4%, general universities at 64.6%, and education universities at 59.5%. Employment rates for general universities, education universities, and junior colleges slightly declined compared to the previous year. By field, the medical field had the highest employment rate at 82.1%, and the engineering field also exceeded the average employment rate with 71.9%. However, the education field (69.5%), social sciences field (69.4%), arts and physical education field (67.2%), natural sciences field (66.5%), and humanities field (61.5%) all fell below the average employment rate.
By region, schools located in the metropolitan area had an employment rate of 72.2%, while non-metropolitan areas had 68.5%, showing a gap of 3.7 percentage points. This gap increased by 1 percentage point compared to the previous year’s regional gap (2.7 percentage points). By gender, 72.4% of males and 68.5% of females were employed. The gender gap widened by 0.9 percentage points compared to the previous year (3.0 percentage points).
Analyzing workplace health insurance enrollees, the average monthly income of university graduates was 3,091,000 KRW. This is 244,000 KRW higher than the previous year. For junior college graduates, the average was 2,577,000 KRW, an increase of 92,000 KRW from the previous year. Graduate school graduates earned an average income of 5,096,000 KRW.
Looking at employment status by company type, employment in small and medium-sized enterprises was the highest at 41.8%. This was followed by ▲non-profit corporations (17.2%), ▲national and local governments (12.2%), ▲mid-sized companies (10.8%), ▲large companies (10.2%), ▲others (4.3%), and ▲public institutions and public enterprises (3.5%).
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