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Kim Yong-beom, director of the Blue House Policy Office, said on March 31 that the government will invest about 1.9 trillion KRW (approximately $1.425 billion) from the supplementary budget to provide direct opportunities for some 110,000 young people.
On Facebook, Kim said the supplemental budget sets aside roughly 900 billion KRW (about $675 million) for startup support and about 1 trillion KRW (about $750 million) for youth \”New Deal\” programs, including vocational training and work experience. He added that these measures — which also include paths for young people to create opportunities while preparing for employment — could directly benefit approximately 110,000 youths.
The package is designed to address the growing issue of so-called \”resting\” youth. Kim noted that most of the persistent \”resting\” figures involve young people, that employment rates have fallen markedly since 2023, and that artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly replaced routine tasks, affecting young people entering the labor market especially hard.
He warned that a cycle persists in which young people prepare but fail to secure opportunities, and employers demand experience while denying chances to gain it. As a result, many young people remain stuck between job hunting, unemployment, and being \”resting.\”
Kim emphasized that these structural problems cannot be reduced to individual failings. He said prolonged hardship among young people becomes a burden on society as a whole and that the issue can no longer be left solely to individuals to solve.
The plan is built around three pillars — experience, leap, and recovery — and focuses on expanding the range of paths available to young people, including entrepreneurship as well as traditional employment. Kim said officials aimed to offer options suited to each person’s circumstances and pace, arguing there does not have to be a single starting line for youth.
Specifically, the government will redesign vocational training and education programs to prioritize job placement, expand project-based work-experience opportunities to support tangible career development, and extend the national employment support system to include young people with no prior job-search experience, thereby bringing \”temporarily paused\” youth into the policy’s scope.
Officials also plan to expand the K-New Deal Academy, a corporate-participation vocational training program, and to provide on-site work-experience programs that will create career opportunities for tens of thousands of young people.
Kim stressed that the spread of AI has lowered technical barriers, making entrepreneurship a more viable option. With a strong idea and execution, he said, young people can create work for themselves even without large-scale resources.
He concluded that broadening paths to employment and entrepreneurship can make the act of taking a chance itself valuable experience and a springboard for advancement, and he expressed hope that the policy will offer a concrete opportunity for young people to restart.
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