Boosting Korean University Students Into Private Industry Employment

Korea’s number of unemployed youth as a share of Korea’s total workforce has hovered around 10% in the past decade. Factoring inthe number of unemployed college graduates age 30 and under, but who are not enrolled in education, and are not engaged in a training program, the so-called“ NEETs” (no employment, education, or training), Korea’s unofficial youth unemployment rate rockets to a Eurozonelevel of 22%. One contributing factor for Korea having 1 out of 5 of its youths in the NEET category is the lack of workplace skills among Korean college graduates. This paper forwards a partial solution on how to narrow the workplace skills gaps between entry-level workplace Korean university graduates and private industry. One critical factor that determines employment in a business enterprise is the job-competency match between the supply of labor (Korea education and training) and the demand for labor (Korean industry). This paper focuses on the supply of labor, specifically the workplace entry-level job competencies of Korean university students. I conducted a survey-questionnaire targeted to 200 undergraduate business majors to gather their responses on the types of entry-level job-competencies they feel they need to learn. From the survey analysis results I developedan workplace entry-level job-competencies training and education program. In order to leverage the learning efficiency of the program, the program adopts an instructional design system having 5 core areas: learning needs analysis, training design, content development, training delivery, and program evaluation. Such an job-competencies training and education program could provide Korean university graduates with certain skills required for entry-level work within private industry.Therefore, the implementation of such program is aimed at narrowing the academic-corporate skills gaps while giving participants of the program a competitive edge in the hiring process of the Korean industry.