No work, no future

It is one of South Korea's most confounding contradictions: a nation bracing for demographic collapse, yet failing to provide its young people with the jobs they need to build lives, families, and futures.

- 

With the presidential election just days away, on June 3, the major candidates remain preoccupied with political brinkmanship—dredging up old scandals and lobbing accusations over peripheral controversies—rather than addressing what may be the country's most urgent crisis: the hollowing out of its labor market.

The population is aging. The birth rate remains among the world's lowest. And a growing number of young Koreans, disillusioned by what they see, are opting out altogether.

According to a report from the Korea Employment Information Service, 18.3 percent of Koreans aged 15 to 29 were classified as "NEET"—not in education, employment, or training—as of 2022. That ranks third among 11 major member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, far exceeding the OECD average of 12.6 percent.