Echo-Boomers Struggle With Employment, Credits and Housing Problems

Unemployment, credit delinquents, housing rents, college feesthese are some of the major problems for echo-boomers.
So who are the echo-boomers[Interview : Hong Ju-won, Account Executive
Saatchi & Saatchi, PCI] "I am one of the echo-boomers and it was so hard for me to get a job since we went through the 2008 global financial crisis, and I know a lot of friends who are still struggling to get a job".

According to the Hyundai Research Institute, although most echo-boomers have received the best education in Korea's historymany are going through hardships to find employment.

[Interview : Park Deog-bae, Research Fellow
Hyundai Research Institute] "Although echo-boomers have high academic backgrounds, the number of jobs offered and demanded do not match in Korea's job market".

Before the global financial crisis in 2008, the employment rate of college graduates were 60-percent in 2007 but in 2010 the employment rate of college graduates sharply fell to 45-percent.
Employment for students with masters degrees also dropped by 10-percent between 2007 and 2010.
As unemployment rate increases it has become hard for students to pay back their college tutition loans.
In 2005 around 180-thousand students sought college loans but the number jumped to more than 1-million in 2011.
And more than 30-thousand people are undertaking the risk of becoming credit delinquents.

[Reporter : Ji Myung-kil
mkji@arirang.co.kr] "More and more Korean echo-boomers are finding it difficult to find a house to live in, pay back their college fees and even get married. And experts say the only way in solving this problem is creating more jobs".
Ji Myung-kil, Arirang News.

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Reporter : mkji@arirang.co.kr