It's not easy for young people in Korea to find a decent job. <br />But what could be more worrying is that even if they do find a job, their income is rising at a rate that's in the zero-percent range.<br />Arirang's Shin Se-min takes a closer look. <br />Korea's younger generation posted the worst income growth last year.<br />The average monthly income of households headed by people in their 20s and 30s was around 4-thousand U.S. dollars.<br />That's an increase of just zero-point-7 percent compared to a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea... even lower than growth figures after the global financial crisis. <br />A major reason behind the slowdown is the country's youth unemployment rate that hit a record high of 9 percent last year.<br />As a result... even young people with jobs often have to start their careers on short-term contracts with little stability.<br /><br /><br />"Younger people have to find jobs quickly and earn money... in order to raise Korea's labor productivity. But that's not what's happening now and this will of course have a negative impact on the overall Korean economy."<br /><br />And as the cost of basic living expenses rise,... like monthly rent,... the amount of debt the younger generation is responsible for keeps piling up.<br />Last year, the average debt of households headed by people under the age of 40 was over 14-thousand dollars,... up more than 11 percent from 2013.<br />Shin Se-min, Arirang News.
