The burned out South Korean millennials are quitting their lucrative white-collared jobs for other unstable jobs. They are getting out of the traditional mould of success which includes raising a family, buying a home, etc. and instead of moving out of the city, taking up creative jobs or taking low-paying jobs abroad.
Why is the youth quitting lucrative jobs?
Despite the increase in unemployment, many young professionals are quitting their jobs as they are burned out due to night shifts and lack of promotion. Another reason is the disillusionment of high property prices despite many others looking to get into chaebols which are powerful, family-controlled companies. Samsung and Hyundai were such chaebols that helped South Koreans to get secure and well-paid jobs which helped to build the middle-class and also make the country the fourth largest economy in the world. But off-late the millennials who come out of the top colleges and secure jobs are less inclined to accept these chaebol jobs due to lower wages as there is great competition from other manufacturers who produce goods at low cost. There seems to be no end to this phenomenon as one of the new year resolutions as per social media sites is quitting jobs. As per a poll conducted by the government, elementary school kids are opting for jobs like a school teacher, doctor, chef, YouTube Creator and some opting country life with a 24% increase in families who have opted for farming.
School of quitting jobs:
Many people are learning the art of quitting jobs by going back to classrooms. There is a campus in Seoul called the ‘School of quitting jobs’ where there are about 7000 people attending the sessions. The founder of this school is Jang Su-Han who quit Samsung to start it and teaches its students on managing identity crisis and brainstorming on Plan B, etc. The founder said that ‘There is a strong demand for identity-related courses, as so many of us were too busy with cram schools to seriously think about what we want to do when we were teenagers’.
Despite all this, Samsung still remains the best place to work in for graduates as per a survey conducted in 2019. But the youngsters who are getting into jobs are least likely to work for long hours and are not keen on corporate life with cut-throat competition. Duncan Harrison, head of Robert Walters Plc said ‘the mindset of people entering the workforce is very different from past generations’.
