▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Youth employment slump becomes structural: The number of employed people aged 15 to 29 fell by 147,000 in September from a year earlier, pushing the employment rate down 1.1 percentage points to 44.0%. Kim Sung-hee, a professor at Korea University's Graduate School of Labor Studies, said, "Non-regular employment remains widespread, and the structural problem persists in which employment rises among older workers while it declines among young people."
■ Stanford scholarship opportunity introduced in Korea: Stanford University's Knight-Hennessy Scholars program will hold information sessions at Yonsei University, Korea University and KAIST from the 19th to the 21st of this month. The program selects 100 scholars a year regardless of major and covers full tuition for up to three years along with living expenses and airfare. Foreign nationals account for more than 46% of all scholars.
■ Debate on future mobility legislation reignites: Lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties on the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee will visit Hyundai Motor's Namyang Research Center on the 20th to inspect autonomous driving, robotics and hydrogen technologies firsthand. With a bill to provide subsidies for fully autonomous vehicles pending in the National Assembly, a member of the committee said the technical challenges confirmed on site would be carried into bill reviews and institutional improvements.
[News of Interest to University Students and Job Seekers]
1. Manufacturing Employment Rebounds After 27 Months, but Youth Chill Persists
Key points: According to the September employment trends released by Statistics Korea, the number of employed people aged 15 to 29 fell by 147,000 from a year earlier, and their employment rate dropped 1.1 percentage points to 44.0%. In the newly published indicator for those aged 15 to 34, employment also fell by 98,000 and the employment rate declined 0.4 percentage points to 56.1%. Manufacturing employment turned higher for the first time in 27 months, but the automobile and textile sectors continued to decline. Experts described the rebound as a temporary one driven by base effects and said structural problems persist.
2. Stanford University Holds Knight-Hennessy Scholars Information Sessions at Korean Universities
Key points: Stanford University will hold information sessions for its Knight-Hennessy Scholars program — which covers full tuition for up to three years along with living expenses and airfare for master's and doctoral students regardless of major — at Yonsei University on the 19th, Korea University on the 20th and KAIST on the 21st of this month. The program selects 100 scholars each year, and a total of 595 students have benefited over the eight years since it began in 2018. Foreign nationals account for more than 46% of all scholars. Scholars are also offered exchange programs with students from a range of majors and nationalities, as well as a global alumni network.
Key points: Lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties on the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee will visit the Hyundai Motor and Kia Namyang Research Center and the Korea Automobile Testing and Research Institute (KATRI) under the Korea Transportation Safety Authority on the 20th to review the status of autonomous driving, robotics and hydrogen technologies. Jaehoon Chang, vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, will personally present the group's strategic technologies, and test drives of high-performance electric vehicles are also scheduled. With an amendment to the autonomous vehicle act containing subsidies for fully autonomous vehicles pending before the committee since it was proposed in November last year, a member of the committee said the technical challenges confirmed on site would be carried into bill reviews and institutional improvements.
4. Wearable Robot Maker Hurotics Raises 25 Billion Won in Series A Funding
Key points: Hurotics, a wearable robot company, has raised 25 billion won ($17.5 million) in Series A funding led by Atinum Investment, lifting its cumulative funding beyond 33.5 billion won. Strategic investors including Daewoong, NAVER and Lotte, as well as the Industrial Bank of Korea, joined as new investors. Its flagship product, H-MEX, has been adopted by Shinchon Severance Hospital, Chung-Ang University Hospital and Korea University Hospital, and was exported to the University of Illinois Chicago in the United States in June this year. The proceeds will be used to obtain overseas regulatory approvals and expand distribution networks, with plans to expand the business over the long term into a wearable physical AI platform.
