For some, idling away time outside labor force may be a survival strategy in a system that never lets them stop
Kim Eun-joo, 35, chose to “just rest” after repeatedly failing to find a new job following her career change from book editing to graphic design. She believes her age has become an obstacle in finding employment. (Kim Eun-joo)
Park Min-jin (not her real name), 26, never knew a life without pressure.
From elementary through high school, she studied relentlessly to enter a top university. Once there, the intensity did not let up. She maintained a 4.26 out of 4.5 grade point average, joined academic societies, earned certificates, studied foreign languages and took part in exchange programs. She even prepared for law school for a year.
After graduating in February last year, she interned at two public financial institutions. By July, she was in full-time job-hunting mode. She sent out 50 to 60 resumes to nearly every finance-related institution in Korea that posted a hiring notice.
Recruitment here is a grueling process — multiple pages of company-tailored essays, aptitude tests unique to each firm and several rounds of interviews. Each cycle can stretch to three to four months. She made it to the final stage of the hiring process at about 10 firms but was rejected each time.
In February this year, burnout forced her to stop trying altogether. Since then, she has been out of work and hasn’t sought employment, becoming part of South Korea’s growing “just resting” population that Statistics Korea tracks in its monthly survey.
Park Min-jin, 26, said ‘We aim for big companies because it’s the only reward for studying that hard for 12 years.’ (Park Min-jin)
Rise of ‘just resting’ youth
Every month, Statistics Korea’s survey asks economically inactive youth the question: “What did you do last week?”
The available responses include working, child care, job seeking, attending school, serving in the military and treating illness. Those who do not fall into any of these categories, meaning neither employed nor actively seeking work without a specific reason, are classified as having “just rested.”
Similar to the globally recognized concept of NEET (not in employment, education or training), this is a more localized category used to capture youth in a state of limbo.
In July, the number of Koreans in their 20s who reported having “just rested” hit a record 421,000, up 58 percent from a decade ago. Those with a college degree or higher accounted for 38.3 percent.
Park admits that part of her situation is voluntary. Despite repeated setbacks, she is unwilling to settle for jobs at small or mid-sized companies.
“We aim for big companies because it’s the only reward for studying that hard for 12 years,” she said. “Large firms at least have decent benefits. Small and mid-sized ones have a toxic culture. Every day on Blind (a workplace app), people post horror stories. I don’t want to go there.”
If she cannot find a job this year, she plans to go abroad — maybe on a working holiday, or to pursue nursing school.
Others The Korea Herald spoke with expressed similar sentiments. After years of studying and preparation under constant comparison with peers and high parental expectations, settling for just any available job feels like a defeat that goes far beyond repeated rejections.
At 32, Lee Joo-ho recalls the months he spent in what official statistics label as “just resting.”
Lee submitted more than 30 job applications to the nation’s top companies, all rejected before even reaching the interview stage. The exhaustion he felt was not just from those months of job-hunting; it was the culmination of years without pause, from grade school through university.
“I couldn’t lower my standards,” he said. “In Korea, the first college you enter becomes a permanent label, and the same goes for your first job. I desperately wanted to start in a good company.”
Here, the wage gap is stark between small and large firms: Workers at firms with fewer than 300 employees earn just 56.2 percent of what those at larger companies make. The gaps in perks and benefits can be even wider.
A 2023 survey by the Korea Employment Information Service showed that 87.7 percent of youth who “just rested” had previous work experience. The most common reason given for their break was “a lack of suitable jobs” (38.1 percent).
‘I don’t know what I want to do’
The prevailing mantra for Korean youth, reinforced by parents and adults, has long been that working hard as students would secure admission to a better college, which would lead to better jobs and overall life success. However, that path is no longer guaranteed.
Lee had never once considered deviating from the set course. “I had never thought about what I actually wanted to do. I had never even had that kind of conversation with my friends.”
Kim Jin-sol said, ‘I don’t regret it. I learned how to live life on my own terms.’ (Kim Jin-sol)
Kim Jin-sol, now in his late 20s, agreed.
For him, life was a straight line of study: from kindergarten to elementary and middle to high school. He always prepared for the next step, never asking himself what he wanted.
“My teacher said my grades could get me into an education or nursing major in college,” he recalled. “If I went to education, I’d face the teacher certification exam later and repeat the same cycle of pressure. I couldn’t bear it again.”
He chose nursing at Pusan National University, not out of passion but because employment was all but guaranteed.
But working as a nurse broke him down. After just four months at Pusan National University Hospital, he quit, fearing for his mental health. He later filled a temporary child care leave position at a mental health center for 13 months, and then decided to “rest” for a while.
“For once, I wanted to find out what I liked,” he said. During the break, he filmed wedding videos for friends, met professors about graduate studies in psychology, launched a YouTube channel with videos of his grandmother and wrote essays online.
Yet as the months dragged on, anxiety crept in. He eventually took another hospital job.
“During the period I ‘rested,’ I was not able to figure out what I wanted,” he said. “But I don’t regret it. I learned how to live life on my own terms.”
Another young Korean, who publishes under the pen name “Moduda” on the writing platform Brunch, has also found a direction toward what he wants to do, although his struggle continues.
He embraced the “just resting” tag after quitting his IT finance job in the spring of last year.
A graduate in anthropology, he had drifted into jobs like sales in manufacturing and finance in tech, lacking true personal motivation or a sense of identity. None of it felt like his own path.
“I never thought about the future. I just followed where everyone else went,” he said.
During his break, he began writing essays and serializing a web novel. To make ends meet, he worked part-time at a gym. He described his state as a mixture of fear and joy. “It’s the first time in my life I can live without being bound to something. When readers leave comments on my novel, that makes me happy enough to outweigh the hard parts.”
Now, he is job-hunting again, but with a new direction: only in fields related to writing, while keeping his novel going.
A structural issue, rather than an individual flaw
Young people interviewed by The Korea Herald said their “rest” was not what people expect.
Lee Joo-ho reflected, “Rest is supposed to recharge you, but I never once felt refreshed. ‘Rest’ made me exhausted.”
During that period, he spent his days idly scrolling on his smartphone and escaped to PC cafes at night to avoid meeting his parents. Whenever he heard his peers land jobs at large firms, he couldn’t help but feel bitter and see himself as a failure.
Kim Eun-joo, 35, said, “There wasn’t a single day I stopped worrying about my future. But from society’s perspective, I am a person who just rests. I don’t want to rest. I want to work. But there is no job for me.”
She chose to “just rest” after repeatedly failing to find a new job following her career change from book editing to graphic design. She believes her age has become an obstacle in finding employment.
Experts say that young people’s choice to pause is not a sign of laziness, but an attempt to protect themselves from burnout brought on by excessive academic demands, repeated failures in job-seeking and constant relative evaluation. The pressure isn’t purely external, as many have internalized these expectations and refuse to lower their own standards, holding themselves to the same high bar that society set for them.
“Korean youth live under relentless evaluation and comparison,” said Kim Seon-hee, a senior researcher at the civic group Education for Spring, who has met more than 10,000 young people over 13 years.
“They are constantly ranked by test scores, the prestige of their universities and the reputation of the companies they join.”
At schools, they are evaluated by their test scores. At college, schools are tiered from the elite “SKY (Seoul, Korea and Yonsei) universities” downward. Entering the workforce, companies are also stratified. Even tech firms grouped under terms like “Nae-Ka-Ra-Ku-Bae-Dang-To,” she said, referring to a nickname formed from the first syllables of the Korean pronunciations of seven of the most sought-after employers: Naver, Kakao, Line, Coupang, Baemin, Danggeun Market, and Toss.
“Growing up constantly compared to peers, may feel anxious about being left behind if they fail to secure a place within these hierarchies,” added Kim of Education for Spring. “As job hunting drags on, that sense of defeat deepens. The fear that each choice may not lead to a good outcome makes them hesitate, avoid decisions and slip into inertia.”
In an October column, feminist scholar and writer Jeong Hee-jin urged people to view young people’s pauses amid extreme competition as “acts of self-protection.” She described them as a survival strategy.
“Overall, the youth ‘rest’ phenomenon is not about individual choice or laziness, but a deeply rooted structural problem that must be addressed step by step,” Kim said. “Simply labeling it as ‘just rest’ risks glossing over their struggles and failing to bring these young people to the surface.”
Intern reporter Jung Yu-jin contributed to this article.
shinjh@heraldcorp.com