Currently unemployment rate does not exactly reflect employment conditions in market as unemployment rate decreases though this rough employment situation. In order to cover up the breach, this research analyzes youth employment conditions based not only on official unemployment rate but also extra indicator, Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization(AMLU), reflecting discouraged workers, marginal workers, and underemployment which are not regarded as unemployment based on current official concept. With AMLU including potential labor force preparing for jobs, this research found that the actual labor underutilization of youth would be about 10% point higher than the official unemployment rate shows. Increase in potential labor force preparing for better jobs especially is remarkably shown among university graduates.

This is a serious problem in the long-term as human resources are not properly utilized which are supposed to support national economy. It also causes various social costs by inefficient human resource allocation. Therefore, employment promotion policies for youth should consider not only the current unemployed who are seeking jobs now, but also university graduated potential labor forces who are not official unemployed but still seeking jobs.