Via Linda Wang on Twitter, I see that the South Korean government measures its job opening demand; they're low on finance jobs and high on chemistry ones:
Employment Information Service (KEIS) announced the results of analyzing the number of jobs per job seeker – the index to gauge the supply and demand of manpower – by calculating it with statistics, as of July of 2014, about finding jobs and people from WORKNET, a state-run Internet site for job hunting.
If the number is smaller than 1, it indicates that getting a job is challenging due to a shortage of job. In contrast, if the number is greater than 1, it means that securing a job is not so challenging since jobs outnumber job seekers.
According to the results, the fields of textile, clothing, electricity, electronics, security, construction, public health, etc. show the index point 0.4~06, which implies that the number of jobs falls short of that of job seekers.
Unlike those areas, the index point in jobs relating to chemistry (2.33), materials (1.94) – metal, glass, and cement – machinery (1.15), and processed food (0.96) is either over 1 or close to 1, which tells job seekers are highly likely to find a job, although it may be possible for a company to find it not easy to hire a person that it is in favor of.Anyone know if this is believable or not? I don't know much about the South Korean #chemjobs market.
Have you heard of Betteridge's law? That being said, all my Korean lab mates got snapped up by Samsung and LG.
ReplyDeleteTwo-shay!
DeleteI somehow find this hard to believe, since South Korea's job market is hypercompetitive; they have a huge glut of university graduates (see, for example, http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/07/15/2013071501595.html).
ReplyDeleteAm surprised to read CJ's assertion about the Korean job market. A little more than a month back, I submitted an open application to Samsung (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, either the Flexible Electronics or Functional Inorganics areas) after painstakingly researching their organic materials technology. Still haven't heard back from them.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I'm skeptical of the claim. I'd like more context about the Korean #chemjobs market (i.e. supply/demand) before I make any assertions.
DeleteDoesn't surprise me much. I did a lot of work in liquid crystals as a grad student/post-doc. All the industrial jobs for this type of work happen to be overseas in Europe/Asia market.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the research at the univeristy of Kent in Ohio? They still do a lot of LC work.
DeleteOne obvious point is that there's very little granularity in that data. A 'chemistry' job, could very well be mid-skilled factory/plant-type work rather than PhD-level research. Samsung etc are highly likely to buck the stats, as they are top players in their industry and very fashionable spots to work. My guess is that the surplus is elsewhere, in less famous companies...
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, academic research in Korea seems to be quite fulfilling, if this Chemistry World interview is anything to go by http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/08/interview-cafer-yavuz-carbon-dioxide-capture