Can you provide a link to labour statistics indicating that? I don't think what you're saying is true at all, I'd be curious to read your source.

https://www.munhwa.com/article/11487922

But really, being deeply ingrained into society and having personally worked at such places here in Korea is worth more than flawed statistics, which really all statistics are when it comes to these topics. I've literally personally interviewed the very few applicants we got as a small company outside of Seoul. They didn't know the difference between a GET and a POST; these were people applying as a backend API developers. We had to train people from absolute zero. And this was at a "modern" workplace ran by young leadership, which should theoretically be much more attractive - one of the, if not the number 1 most commonly named reason for not wanting to work for smaller companies (and even moreso outside of Seoul) is "old(-school) working culture".

https://www.segye.com/newsView/20250327517804

These companies aren't like Silicon Valley startups abusing H1Bs, hiring foreigners because they're cheaper, Koreans genuinely aren't applying.

Go ask her and her friends how many 중소 outside of 수도권 they've applied to. Again, if they've studied something like German language or archaeology then sure, but people aren't getting jobs in those fields in Sweden (to name a completely random high HDI country) either.