SEOUL – More young South Koreans are disengaging from the labour market, with fewer expressing a desire to work over the past decade, according to a report by state-run Korea Labour Institute.

The report, released in late June, analyses a decade of data from 2015 to 2024 based on Statistics Korea’s annual survey of the economically inactive population, focusing on individuals aged 19 to 39 who are not actively seeking employment.

Amid the rise of the economically inactive population, which refers to those 15 or older who are unable or unwilling to work, the institute noted that 77 per cent reported having no intention to find a job.

About 20 per cent expressed a willingness to work but had not been involved in a job search in the past four weeks.

The report highlighted that the percentage of those who said they would be able to work if offered a job decreased significantly from 54 per cent to 31 per cent during the same period between 2015 and 2024.

The institute noted that this sharp drop could be attributed to the impact of Covid-19.

It identified resting, education and childcare as the top three reasons for youth economic inactivity over the past decade.

Though the report did not disclose exact numbers for the individual data, it stated that the share of younger people engaged in childcare dropped sharply from 26.8 per cent to 13.8 per cent over the decade. But those categorised as resting doubled from 10.5 per cent to 20 per cent.

The proportion of those attending school remained relatively stable over the 10-year period.

The report noted that youth economic activity tends to stabilise after age 26.

While many young people experience repeated unemployment with short-term jobs until their mid-20s, they tend to fall into two different groups by age 25 or 26: one that stabilises into employment and another that shifts into long-term economic inactivity due to lack of work experience.