"To Survive," Worse Than COVID-19... Why Are Young People Volunteering for Boot Camp? [AFTER 8 SPECIAL]

1. Youth Employment Faces Worst Crisis Since Asian Financial Crisis
From January through August of this year, the number of employed people in their 20s dropped by 5.6% compared to the same period last year. Comparing the same periods, this drop is the largest since the IMF foreign exchange crisis. A total of 193,000 jobs for this age group disappeared this year—a worse situation than the 142,000 lost in 2009 during the global financial crisis and the 111,000 lost in 2020 immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, while the overall employment rate is similar to last year, youth employment alone has dropped by 1 percentage point. Furthermore, landing a first job now takes 1.3 months longer than it did a decade ago. Under these circumstances, the government injected 98.8 billion won in supplementary budget funds in April of this year to tackle the youth employment slump and launched the "K-New Deal Academy." Through the Ministry of Employment and Labor, around 50 companies are running job training programs designed to help participants get hired.

2. A Day in the Life of Job Seekers
The place I visited was the LS Miraewon in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province. It is a three-month residential program where participants stay at LS Group's training institute to learn various job-essential skills, such as coding, report writing, and interviewing. Because they spend 24 hours a day eating, sleeping, and focusing solely on job preparation here, their skills naturally improve rapidly.

[Kim Yu-bin (27) / Suwon, Gyeonggi Province: (It has been about a month since you entered the residential program, do things feel easier compared to when you first started?) Yes, when it comes to handling data, I was originally only at an Excel level, but now I think I can completely break down data and extract what I want from it.]

From a company's perspective, because they can design the training programs themselves, the program has the advantage of cultivating talent equipped with customized job skills.

[Lee Woo-seop / Head of HRD Planning Team, LS Miraewon: We are running the program so that participants can build the competencies recently demanded by companies, such as AI utilization skills. From a company's perspective, it is meaningful in that we can preemptively secure well-prepared talent.]

Even after classes end, they continue studying on their own in study rooms—learning languages, preparing for certifications, and discussing projects—meaning their days here often wrap up only after midnight. Kim Young-sik, who came from Wonju, Gangwon Province, said he is approaching this program with a desperate mindset.

[Kim Young-sik (32) / Wonju, Gangwon Province: I should say I am more desperate. Well, considering my age... Three months is even shorter than military service, and pushing hard for three months feels like it will keep me from having regrets later.]

Cha Se-il, from Nam-gu, Busan, already has six years of experience working in a manufacturing human resources team. However, believing that AI skills are essential in a fast-changing industry, he voluntarily entered the boot camp as a job recruit once again. The job market he returned to has changed significantly.

[Cha Se-il (31) / Nam-gu, Busan: You can even tell from job postings. They ask about your AI competencies—like what you have achieved by utilizing AI. I am approaching this with a heavy heart, thinking of it as my final challenge. Our ultimate goal is successful employment, and our shared hope is to achieve that goal after fully equipping ourselves with work skills.]

3. A "Recruit Training Center" for the Job War
The term "boot camp" originally refers to a military recruit training center. Everyone here has stepped forward as a "job recruit" to enroll. The average age of the job recruits entering LS Miraewon is 28. More than 100 people applied from all over the country, and 31 were selected. The competition ratio exceeded 3 to 1. When I visited, about a month after enrollment, four people had successfully found jobs and left, leaving only 27 recruits behind. Experts pay attention to the symbolism carried by the term "boot camp."

[Lee Joo-hee / Professor of Sociology, Ewha Womans University: It means that you have to enter the military-style camp and learn all day long. It feels like the competition for employment has truly become an employment war.]

This implies that "residential job preparation" is virtually the process of becoming a soldier capable of surviving in an employment battlefield. The young people who sought out the boot camp were contemplating and preparing for their futures more fiercely than anyone else. At the same time, however, seeing them sacrifice their youth for job preparation alongside statistics about a freezing labor market, I couldn't help but think that what is most needed is a job market where such extreme forms of residential job preparation are not necessary in the first place.

Reported by Lee Se-hyeon | Produced by Shin Hee-sook | Video by Kim Seung-tae, Kang Si-woo | Video Editing by Ahn Jun-hyeok | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.