81% of Young Koreans Say Raising Retirement Age Will Cut Hiring

Eighty-one percent of young Koreans expect that extending the statutory retirement age would shrink new hiring — up 10.2 percentage points from a year earlier, according to a Korea Employers Federation survey published September 29, 2026.

The poll covered 1,052 people aged 20 to 34 who were either job-seeking or employed. It also found 62.9% describe the current youth job market as "generally difficult." That's roughly two out of every three respondents.

By Grace Kim

Why do young Koreans think the market is hard?

The survey asked for reasons (multiple answers allowed). The top three sit within a single point of each other:

• 49.5% — "acceleration of hiring focused on experienced workers"
• 49.2% — "reduction in hiring compared to the previous year"
• 49.1% — "decrease in demand for manpower due to the use of artificial intelligence"

Read together, that's a squeeze from three directions: employers favor mid-career hires, headcount is shrinking, and AI is absorbing work that used to go to juniors. For an individual applicant, it means the entry-level door is narrowing while the experienced-hire lane widens.

The retirement-age question sharpens the picture. The 81.0% who expect a "reduction in the scale of new hiring" if the retirement age rises represents a sharp jump from last year's survey — evidence that anxiety has intensified as the policy debate has grown more active in South Korea.

In plain terms: young workers read retirement-age extension as a zero-sum delay of their own promotions and vacancies.

What do job seekers prioritize?

When choosing an employer, money leads by a wide margin:

• 66.6% — salary level
• 46.0% — job security
• 34.7% — job suitability or relevance to their major

In preparing for employment, 47.4% said they focused most on internships or work experience programs — the most common answer, and a rational one given what they cite as their biggest obstacle.

The top difficulties in the job search were a "lack of quality jobs" (50.9%) and a "lack of work experience or career background" (49.0%). Geography flips the ranking. In the Seoul metropolitan area, the jobs shortage dominates (53.3% vs. 46.2% for experience). Outside the capital region, the experience gap leads (53.6% vs. 46.9%) — a 6.7-point spread.

So the same national labor market produces two different problems: Seoul-area candidates can't find good openings, while regional candidates can't build the résumé to win them.

What fixes do respondents want?

On priorities for expanding youth employment, the answers split nearly evenly between supply-side and demand-side policy: 49.6% chose "strengthening employment infrastructure," and 49.2% chose "enhancing support for companies that hire young people."

Ryu Ki-jung, executive vice president of the Korea Employers Federation, framed the response as a two-track strategy: strengthening employment infrastructure to enhance job seekers' capabilities, thereby reducing mismatches, and increasing incentives for companies that voluntarily provide youth employment support programs. "Given the significant concern that extending the statutory retirement age will reduce youth hiring," he said, "a prudent approach to advancing retirement age extension is necessary."

With four in five young Koreans now linking retirement-age policy directly to their own hiring chances, that caution is likely to shape the pace of any reform.