Call for the Enactment of the Youth Employment National Responsibility Act

“Youth Unemployment is a National Survival Strategy Issue”

Searching for Structural Alternatives to Youth Job Creation in the Wake of Cambodia Murder Case

The Employment, Welfare and Pension Advancement Alliance (Representative Juch Myong-Yong, hereafter “Kobokyeon”) proposed the enactment of a Youth Employment National Responsibility Act (tentative title), urging the state to take responsibility and intervene directly in youth employment. On the 28th, Kobokyeon held a “Taoreum Talk Concert” at the Korea Association of Retired Persons (KARP) auditorium in Gwangjang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, with about 50 attendees, to make this proposal public. The event was organized to highlight the seriousness of youth unemployment following the tragic death of a Korean college student lured into an overseas job scam in Cambodia.

Lee Seok-Koo, Policy Specialist of KARP and keynote speaker, pointed out:“Unlike in the past when the state itself paved the way for overseas advancement—sending miners and nurses to Germany, and construction workers to the Middle East—today’s youth generation is left abandoned in a fiercely competitive market structure.”As a result, although Korea’s overall unemployment rate is in the 2% range, the youth unemployment rate stands at 5.9% (2024). He stressed that the attitude of the older generation, who only repeat the advice “just work harder,” as well as the state’s negligence, must change. According to him, the tragedies facing youth are not merely individual misfortunes but reflect structural problems and state responsibility evasion, for which structural solutions must be sought.

Three core messages were delivered at the event:

1. Youth employment is not a welfare issue but a matter of national survival strategy.

2. Employment for young people cannot be left solely to the market; direct state intervention is essential.

3. As in the past, the state must actively open both overseas and domestic career opportunities for youth.

Specific policy alternatives proposed included: the enactment of the Youth Employment National Responsibility Act (tentative), major reform and expansion of KOICA’s (Korea International Cooperation Agency) overseas youth dispatch programs (a modern version of the 1960s–70s dispatch of miners and nurses to Germany), establishment of a public-private Youth Employment Linkage Committee, and the allocation of a separate budget for youth employment.

Lee also cited advanced international policy cases such as the EU’s Youth Guarantee, the U.S. Peace Corps’ overseas dispatch, and the job-linked education and apprenticeship systems of Germany and Switzerland, urging Korea to adopt similar measures. He stressed the need for a “nationwide approach to youth employment.”

Juch Myong-Yong, Representative of KARP, declared:“When the state steps forward, youth can regain hope. Only when youth rise can the Republic of Korea survive.”

Participants at the concert pledged to redefine the youth unemployment problem not as an individual’s lack of ability or effort, but as a structural issue at the national level, and to take this event as a starting point for social discussions aimed at finding real solutions.

Meanwhile, Ewha Womans University students Lee Yoon-Seo, Kang Ye-Ji, and Jin Hee-Won, who attended the event as part of a retirement-related research project, expressed their gratitude:“We did not know that the senior generation was paying such deep attention to the problems faced by youth.” They conducted interviews with retired participants after listening to the presentations and discussions, as part of data collection for their research papers.