Graduates with humanities degree still find it hard to get jobs

“They say that hiring conditions have improved from last year, but I don’t think there are more hiring opportunities for students with liberal art degrees,” replied Cho (age 26,), who lives in Seoul, in response to hiring conditions for this year. She had delayed university graduation by one year and graduated last summer. “I think students in the liberal arts department delay graduation more often than science majors, as it is more difficult for them to find jobs,” said Cho.

Hiring conditions in the first half of the year is showing signs of recovery from the pandemic, but university graduates looking for jobs feel that it varies depending on their major. Those with science degrees feel the job market has regained vitality, while those with liberal arts degree feel that the market is still depressed or has gotten worse.

Catch, a hiring platform, released a market survey carried out from March 23 to April 7 of 500 job seeking graduates, who have been looking for jobs for more than six months. The results showed Monday that 36% of respondents with science degree (141 respondents) said they felt hiring was more active, followed by ‘similar to last year’ at 35%. Only 28% replied that they felt market conditions had grown more depressed.

Meanwhile, 40% of graduates with humanities degree (349 respondents) replied that hiring was similar to that of last year, followed by ‘depressed’ at 31%. Only 28% viewed the market as actively hiring.

According to Catch, the mixed response came from increased hiring from industries with science background while businesses requiring liberal arts degrees were less active in hiring. A year-on-year comparison of hiring posts by top 10 Korean conglomerates, Naver, and Kakao showed that hiring posts from IT, construction and civil engineering, manufacturing rose from 252 to 298. Meanwhile, job postings from education/publication, media/culture, services, banks/finance, sales/retail industries, in which liberal arts graduates are mostly hired, fell from 119 to 100.


Ae-Jin Ju jaj@donga.com