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Older adults drive up employment rate as youth languish in job market

Published: 03 Feb. 2026, 19:51 Updated: 03 Feb. 2026, 19:58

Visitors consult with officials to apply for jobs at an employment fair for older adults hosted by Mapo District in western Seoul on Dec. 10, 2025. [YONHAP]

Korea’s overall employment rate is rising on the back of a record increase in government-funded jobs for older adults, while prospects for youth employment remain bleak.

The government plans to generate a record 1.15 million jobs for older adults this year, up 54,000, from last year’s target of 1.09 million, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Tuesday.

Central and local governments will spend about 5 trillion won ($3.5 billion) to fund the programs.

Job programs for older adults have expanded steadily since their introduction in 2004. Longer life expectancies have increased demand among those who want to keep working, while the private sector has struggled to absorb them, pushing reliance toward public programs.

The number of jobs for the demographic stood at about 30,000 in 2004, rose to roughly 330,000 in 2014 and reached about 540,000 in 2018. The total surpassed 1.07 million in 2024.

The share of jobs among people aged 65 and older has climbed sharply, from about 35,000 positions, or 0.9 percent of the older population, in 2004 to 5.2 percent in 2014 and a record 10.5 percent in 2024.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to expand jobs for the demographic to cover 10 percent of the older population through 2027 and about 10.7 percent from 2028. Based on long-term population projections, the number of such jobs could exceed 1.93 million by 2044.

People line up to apply for jobs at an employment fair for older adults hosted by Mapo District at the Mapo District Office in western Seoul on Dec. 10, 2025. [YONHAP]

Once expanded, however, the job programs prove difficult to scale back.

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration, which began in 2022, announced plans to cut 61,000 such jobs in the public sector as part of fiscal tightening but reversed course after a public backlash. The 2024 budget later included plans to create 1.03 million jobs, up 147,000 from the previous year.

The expansion also affects headline employment indicators. The employment rate for people aged 15 and older reached 62.9 percent last year, the highest since recordkeeping began in 1963, while the number of employed people increased by 193,000 from a year earlier.

The gains, however, came largely from older adults. Employment among people aged 65 and older rose by 1.3 percentage points, while the employment rate for young people aged 15 to 29 fell by 1.1 percentage points, driven in part by the older adult job programs, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

The overall unemployment rate stood at 2.8 percent last year, but the youth unemployment rate reached 6.1 percent.

Unemployment among older adults also spiked in January and December, a pattern that has persisted for years. In December of last year, the unemployment rate for people aged 60 and older hit 8.4 percent, the highest in the past five years. The rate also reached 7 percent in January last year, well above the 1 to 3 percent range seen in other months.

The pattern reflects the structure of job programs for the older population, which typically begin in early to mid-January and end in early to mid-December.

People fill out applications for jobs and skills-based employment programs at a job fair for older adults held at the Mapo District Office in western Seoul on Dec. 10, 2025. [NEWS1]

The Ministry of Data and Statistics counts anyone who worked at least one hour for pay during the survey week encompassing the 15th of each month as employed. Older adults in public-interest jobs earn about 290,000 won ($200) a month and count as employed, but when programs pause, many participants temporarily fall into the unemployed category.

Still, the job programs contribute to easing poverty among older adults.

The programs reduce household poverty rates among participants by 4 to 6 percentage points and lower the overall poverty rate among the relevant demographic by about 1 percentage point, while also improving health and social connections, according to the Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged (Kordi).

Experts say the government must pursue private-sector job creation and improvements in job quality alongside job programs for the older population. They also call for institutional changes to reduce distortions in employment statistics.

“As the share of public-sector jobs increases, it has become difficult to accurately assess actual employment conditions and the broader economy based solely on headline employment figures,” the Bank of Korea said in a recent report. “There is a need to develop alternative indicators."

The United States, on the other hand, already publishes employment data separately for the private and public sectors.

“To improve the credibility of employment statistics, the government should separately report on the share of older participants in public-interest job programs, rather than folding it into headline employment figures,” said Kim Ga-won, a deputy research fellow at Kordi.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM KYUNG-HEE [[email protected]]