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Youth struggle to find part time jobs while older adults stay in the work force

Published: 19 Apr. 2026, 16:55

Kiosks are inside a bookstore in Seoul. [NEWS1]

The Korean work force is in the midst of a generational shift as people in their 60s shun retirement to emerge as a core demographic in the labor market while 20-somethings struggle even to find part-time jobs — raising concerns of an intergenerational conflict.

The number of older adults per 100 working-age individuals in Korea stood at 29.3 in 2024, lower than the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of 32.6, but is projected to surge to 84.5 in 2054 and 122 in 2084 — the highest in the world, based on the OECD’s Pensions at a Glance 2025 report released Thursday.

Young people who will bear that burden are already struggling to enter the labor force. The employment rate for people in their 20s stood at 58.7 percent in March, down 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier, data from the National Data Portal showed. The figure has remained flat or declined compared to the same month a year earlier for 19 consecutive months since September 2024, indicating a structural slowdown.

A prolonged slump in key industries such as manufacturing and construction — excluding sectors like semiconductors — has been cited as a major factor. The rapid shift from large-scale regular recruitment to rolling hiring has also had a significant impact.

More recently, the spread of AI across industries has worsened job prospects, as tasks once assigned to entry-level workers are increasingly being replaced.

Even part-time jobs are becoming scarce.

“Compared to a few years ago, the number of decent part-time jobs has noticeably decreased,” said a 26-year-old university student surnamed Song, who is nearing graduation. “I went back to places where I used to work out of frustration, but they had cut their part-time staff in half, either because of the economy or they installed self-checkout systems.”

Office workers walk across Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on May 20, 2025. [YONHAP]

Restaurants that introduced tablets for ordering reduced serving staff by 11.5 percent, while employment in the position among those aged 29 or younger dropped by 23.1 percent — the largest decline among all age groups — according to a 2024 study of 2,000 restaurants in Seoul conducted by the Korea Employment Information Service. Rising labor costs and worsening business conditions have led more small business owners to replace workers with self-service systems, further shrinking job opportunities for young people.

Discussions on extending the retirement age and utilizing older workers have been ongoing, but responses to youth unemployment have been relatively weak, underpinned by optimism that job conditions will improve when the economy recovers. This idle sentiment risks escalating into intergenerational conflict over jobs.

The introduction of the mandatory retirement age of 60 in 2016 reduced full-time jobs for people aged 23 to 27 by an average of 6 percent, a 2023 study led by Prof. Kim Dae-il at Seoul National University found.

“The rapid demographic shift inevitably increases the burden on younger generations, and this trend is not sustainable as it places pressure on the entire social system,” Kang Sung-jin, an economics professor at Korea University and president of the Korean Economic Association, said.

“There needs to be bold fiscal investment to build education and training systems, employment information and matching systems that make it easier to find new jobs or start businesses in the era of the AI transition,” Lee, Cheol-Sung, a sociology professor at Sogang University, said.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JANG WON-SEOK, NAM SOO-HYOUN [[email protected]]