Does He Want The US To Become Korea?

I wonder how much time Obama has spent in Korea--or even reading about it, or hearing about it from Koreans or other people who have spent a lot of time there.


I've never been there myself.  But I know a number of people who have lived and worked there for extended periods of time. Also, I have, and have had, a number of Korean students.


The Koreans have already done what Obama seems to want Americans to do.  Nearly everybody graduates from school; of them, about 80 percent go on to university.  And nearly all of them graduate, mainly with degrees in science and technology.  Most who don't attend university are poor people in rural areas.


You might think that those numbers reflect what you've always been told about Koreans' work ethic.  That is probably true, and it also is indicative of a culture in which educated children are a sign of a "good" family.  However, all of their striving for degrees masks a serious problem in the Korean economy.


You see, there employment picture for graduates is just as bad, if not worse, than it is in the United States.  Seoul National, acknowledged as the best university in the country, has only a 70 percent placement rate for its graduates.  The percentages at other universities are even lower.  


The problem, apparently, is that there aren't enough high-skill jobs for those graduates.  Yet, for the country's hard, dirty jobs, workers are brought in from China, Vietnam, the Phillipines and even Uzbekistan.  


It's not that the Koreans are "too lazy" to take those jobs.  Nearly all Koreans live with their parents until they are married; it's almost a "given" that unemployed graduates will do likewise.  Korean parents have a lot--including honor, as well as a financial investment--riding on their kids' success.  So they discourage their kids from taking lower-level, lower-paying jobs even to get a start in life.  Instead, they push their kids to make themselves "more qualified," whether by taking another degree, improving their English or studying abroad.  


However, even as many young people are so kept off the labor market, the number of professional and managerial openings--which are the ones most graduates seek--hasn't increased.  In fact, there are indications that the numbers of those jobs are declining.  So the country is faced with something that now faces the United States:  a glut of people with degrees and a shortage of suitable jobs for them.


The difference is, of course, that neither those students nor their families incur the massive debts too many of their American counterparts take on.  Still, the strain of not having jobs and of the cost of schooling takes a financial--and, often, emotional--toll on graduates and their families. 


Some European countries and Japan may be headed for the same fate.  In all of those countries, the percentage of graduates from high school (or its equivalents) who attend colleges and universities is increasing.  But the number of high-skill jobs that pay well isn't.


All of those countries could find themselves in a similar position to that of Ireland before its "boom" of the '90's, or of many of the former Soviet satellites (e.g., the Czech Republic, Poland and others) until recently: full of well-educated, well-qualified people but lacking in the kinds of jobs for which they were supposedly educated and qualified. Is that what Obama wants for the United States?