Youth Employment Challenges and Ko-rean Government’s Solutions through

Work-Learning Dual Systems

Yoon-Ho KimHRD Center, KOREATECH

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2015.10

Do-Hyung KimDirector, Labor Market Policy DivisionMinistry of Employment and Labor

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※ Statistics Korea, 2015.6

Hard-to-employYouth

Youth unem-ployment

Youth time-related underem-ployment

(<36hours/week)

Youth inac-tivity

440.9K 60.5K 640.3K 1.16 million

Unemployed Youth 440.9 thousand

Youth unemployment rate 10.2%

Hard-to-employ Youth 1.16 million

Continuing the Challenges of Youth Employ-ment

15-29 year-olds

15-64 year-olds

2.5 times

2.5 times of the overall unemployment rate

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Labor mismatch in the market due to inadequate academic-oriented edu-cation

Too much cost in retraining new employees (USD 60,000 per)* For youth population, getting a good job is hard.

Mismatch in the labor market

BRA ITAMEX SV

KDEU

GRCDNK

EST

POLFIN NLD BEL FR

AAUS

NZLNOR IRL

CANKOR

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

25-34 25-64

Population that has attained tertiary education (%, 2011)

OECD Factbook 2014: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics - © OECD 05-05-2014

* Survey on the status of recruitment and retraining for newly hired employees by KEF(‘08)

Youth “Employment Cliff” is predicted during the next 3-4 years.

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The government developed a comprehensive youth employment package, which covers increasing jobs for youth, addressing skill

mismatches in the job market, and improving support.

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Increase Youth EmploymentPublic Sector• Around 15,000 teaching jobs to be made available in 2016-2017 as the government

will accept more early retirements as many as 2,000 a year• Gradually increase jobs for those teaching students with disabilities • Around 10,000 nursing jobs to be added by 2017 with the introduction of total patient

care services at hospitals• Steadily increase nurses at daycare centers• Create a total of 4,500 civil service jobs with flexible hours by 2017 • As many as 8,000 young adults to find jobs at public institutions due to the peak wage

system

Private Sector• Give tax incentives to companies for increasing permanent jobs for youth compared

to the previous year• Provide wage support1 to companies hiring young employees through the peak wage

system or by reforming their wage systems• Internships at promising SMEs to be increased to 50,000 a year, and the government

will revise support for these opportunities to lead to permanent employment• Provide strengthened job training opportunities in promised areas to 50,000 job

seekers

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Address Skill Mismatches in the Job MarketPromote Industry-School Joint Training • Students’ job finding performance to be looked at when evaluating Leaders in Indus-

try-University Cooperation (LINC) • Continue to promote technical high schools, colleges and workplace training for uni-

versity students, in order to encourage work and learning dual systems

Restructure University Programs Restructure university programs to meet industrial demand and prepare for the fu-

ture Release 5 and 10 year labor force supply and demand outlooks by university major, in

order for universities to refer to the outlooks when restructuring their programs Finalize the plan for PRIME2 by the end of 2015, and provide up to 30 billion won in

support per university to accelerate restructuring

Promote Working in SMEs • Provide better work environment including housing, transportation and childcare ser-

vices• Increase opportunities for young SME employees to be enlisted as skilled industrial

personnel serving their military duty

Challenges of vocational education and train-ing in Korea (OECD recommendations)

• VET institutions often see themselves as having a largely academic orientation but they are expected to provide job-ready recruits for industry.

• School-industry partnerships are typically established to sat -isfy the needs of local firms rather than to provide broader occupation-specific and transferable skills.

• Workplace training is not systematically provided in VET pro-grammes and quality standards for workplace training are weak.

OECD reviews of vocational education and training: Learning for Jobs (POINTERS FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT), 2011, p. 37

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Work-learning Dual System

• Students have an opportunity to learn on and off the site simultaneously.

• The quality standard is more rigorously built up with the national competency standard(NCS).

2015_Introduction to HRDKorea and GIFTS(Work-Learning Dual System), https://gifts.hrdkorea.or.kr8

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Work-learning Dual System

Apprenticeship school Going back and forth between school(3days) and company(2days) Extending into all technical high school within 2017. Under consideration of including service sector (hotel…)

Uni-Tech (employment guarantee program ) Application of dual enrollment program between colleges and tech. high schoolPlans to select 16 demonstrative Uni-tech by the end of 2015

IPP (Industry Professional Practice)13 universities in 2015 -> extending to 30% of total universities by 2017KOREATECH

High School

College

University

•Disseminate the dual systems to high schools, colleges and univer-sities• Strengthen financial supports such as training program develop-ment, training expenses

Why is Dual System needed?

2015_Introduction to HRDKorea and GIFTS(Work-Learning Dual System), https://gifts.hrdkorea.or.kr10

Operation of Dual System: Financial supports

2015_Introduction to HRDKorea and GIFTS(Work-Learning Dual System), https://gifts.hrdkorea.or.kr11

IPP(Industry Professional Practice) in KOREATECH: Introduction

• A new industrial-academic training for solving the employment problem of the young generation which resulted from hiring mismatches by universities and companies.

• Work and Study in Parallel System is a Korean apprenticeship that KOREATECH has had since 2012.

• Helping students to have business practice experiences and employment capabilities• The programs are designed with the NCS (national competence standard) based S-

OJT.• During IPP program, 3rd and 4th graders are sent to the companies which have made

agreements with KOREATECH and work for 4 to 10 months.• Students may acquire up to 15 credits with some allowances (IPP scholarship)

Year 2 Year 3 Year 4semester Winter Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring Summer Fall Winter

A-Track - Lecture Lecture IPP4-month

IPP2-month

Lecture Lecture IPP4-month

-

B-Track Lecture IPP4-month

IPP2-month

Lecture Lecture IPP4-month

- Lecture -

An illustration of IPP educational system

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IPP(Industry Professional Practice) in KOREATECH: Performance

Global IPP Domestic IPP

FirmsStudents

StudentsCountries

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IPP(Industry Professional Practice) in KOREATECH: Outcomes

For Students For Companies

Improving job-specific skills Improving human relations skills Establishing their career plan Obtaining economic income

Acquiring a stable workforce Pre-employment screening Utilizing the employee effectively Saving on training costs

KOREATECH

Ranked No.1 in the graduate employment rate of all four-year universities na-tionwide by the Ministry of Education & Science Technology (2014)

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