Young Koreans are losing interest in civil service jobs and instead flock to schools that train them in professional skills.
Applicants for appraiser license exams have increased 2.6 times since 2018 to 4,509 this year, and for labor attorney license 74 percent to 8,261, while the number of people signing up for tax accountant licenses rose 41 percent to 14,728.
Applications for license tests for accountants (15,413), paralegals (5,647) and patent attorneys (3,713) are also at the highest levels in five years.
But the popularity of civil service jobs, once considered a dream career among young Koreans due to job stability, has started to wane. According to the Ministry of Personnel Management, the competition rate for the mid-level civil service exam stood at 42.7:1, the lowest since 1979, and for the entry-level exam it has fallen from a peak of 93:1 in 2011 to 29.2:1.
Young people seem to be interested in higher pay and turning their back on the staid hierarchies of government service.
The salary of entry-level civil servants is around W26 million this year, but the salaries of the bottom 25 percent of certified appraisers, labor attorneys, lawyers and tax accountants are W60 million, W41.44 million, W67.67 million and W59.35 million (US$1=W1,348).
The government has also promised to shrink Korea's bloated civil service over the next five years and freeze their wages, which tarnished even more of the career's luster.
Shin Yoon-seo (21) is preparing to take her accountant license exam. "A professional license gives me the freedom to switch jobs more easily," she said. "I don't see the merit of working for the same employer for a long time, which is why civil service work turns me off."
A growing number of young government workers are quitting. The number of public servants with less than five years' experience who quit doubled from 5,181 in 2017 to 10,693 in 2021, and 81 percent were in their 20s and 30s.
