SEOUL - Yoon Chang-hyun's parents told him to get his sanity checked when he quit his secure job as a researcher at Samsung Electronics Co in 2015 to start his own YouTube channel.
Some young Koreans are also moving out of city for farming or taking blue collar jobs abroad, shunning their society's traditional measures of success - well-paid office work, raising a family and buying an apartment. Similar issues among younger workers are being seen globally. However, South Korea's strict hierarchical corporate culture and oversupply of college graduates with homogeneous skills make the problem worse, says Ban Ga-woon, a labor market researcher at state-run Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training.
The 34-year-old Jang, who himself quit Samsung Electronics in 2015 to launch the school, said it now offers about 50 courses, including classes on how-to-YouTube, manage an identity crisis, and how to brainstorm a Plan B.