From Master's Degree to Cafe Owner to Job Seeker: Young People Face 'Mental Breakdown'

Person A, who graduated from a design graduate school, decided to set aside their job search and opened a brunch cafe in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, in 2023. The start was smooth, but the number of customers gradually declined. Unable to cope with soaring labor costs and other expenses, they eventually closed the business in April of last year, just a year and a half after opening. They were left with 60 million won in debt. [Person A / Young Entrepreneur: The cost of food ingredients rose significantly compared to when I first started. When I closed the business, my revenue was only about 20% of what I had expected.] They tried to knock on the doors of the food industry, leveraging their startup experience, but even that was not easy. [Person A / Young Entrepreneur: Companies aren't looking to hire new people, and I feel that my experience is considered useless when trying to get into a company.] For young people facing difficulties in finding employment, starting a business is often seen as another opportunity. However, due to a combination of lack of experience, insufficient capital, and sluggish domestic demand, the number of business closures among those in their 30s and younger last year was 12% higher than it was four years ago, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure rate is 6 percentage points higher than the overall average. The problem is that the job market is also becoming increasingly frozen. [Kim Min-seo / Job Seeker: I'm anxious. If I can't get a job next year, I'll have a gap of two to three years, which really sets me back.] In May, the number of employed young people saw its largest decline in 5 years and 4 months. [Kim Gwang-seok / Head of Economic Research at the Korea Institute of Economic and Industrial Research: The period during which they can build their own self-sufficiency is being delayed, and there may be less support from experienced professionals or talent who should serve as the backbone of the future.] With the two pillars of youth economic activity—employment and entrepreneurship—collapsing simultaneously, there is a growing sense of crisis that time is running out before the vitality of not only the economy but society as a whole declines. Reported by Jung Jun-ho | Written by Yoon Sung-sik | Video by Kim Se-kyung | Video Editing by Park Na-young | VJ: Jung Han-wook | Produced by SBS Digital News

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