Credit: Public domain.
Only 70.4% of new Ph.D. degree earners from 2024 have a job or a job offer, according to the Bureau of Statistics 통계청. The unemployment rate for new doctorates, 29.6%, is the highest on record; in 2014, when the Bureau began tracking this statistic, 24.5% of new doctorates were jobless. 47.7% of Ph.D. holders under 30 were jobless, also a record high.
Women Ph.D. holders (33.1%) were more likely to be jobless than men (27.4%). Ph.D. holders in the humanities had the highest rate of joblessness (40.1%), followed by natural sciences (37.7%) and social sciences (33.1%). Unemployment was less of a worry for Ph.D.s in health (20.9%), education (21.7%), and business administration (23.9%).
