As Gen Z wrestles with AI upending the traditional career ladder, a growing number of South Korean teenagers are skipping college and choosing vocational semiconductor schools instead—putting them on track for six-figure careers before they’re even old enough to vote.
Rather than spending their final years of high school preparing for university entrance exams, students learn skills like electronic-circuit design, clean-room protocols, and contamination control alongside calculus and chemistry—the technical foundation needed to work in the country’s multibillion-dollar chip industry.
And at Chungbuk Semiconductor High School, southeast of Seoul, 96.4% of students are graduating with a job offer in hand.
“When I was in middle school, I tried to convince some of my friends to enroll with me,” No Jun-sik, a 17-year-old senior with a job offer from Samsung, told The New York Times. Instead, many decided to attend university. “A lot of them are now regretting that,” he added.
Like Jun-sik, roughly one in four students land jobs directly at Samsung, South Korea’s largest company. The average Samsung Electronics employee earned a salary of 158 million won ($107,300) last year, according to The Korea Herald.
Under the company’s latest union labor agreement, employees in its semiconductor division—including assembly-line operators—could earn as much as $400,000 next year if profit targets are met.
AI is making it harder for college grads to find jobs—but opening six-figure opportunities in semiconductor manufacturing
The appeal of more hands-on careers like semiconductor manufacturing comes as AI forces young people around the world to rethink whether a traditional four-year degree is still the safest route to a stable, high-paying career.
More than 480,000 South Koreans with at least a university degree were unemployed in the second quarter of 2026—the highest level in five years. Among young people ages 15 to 29, the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.2%, with AI expected to continue to make entry-level hiring even more competitive.
The trend isn’t unique to South Korea. In the U.S., workers with at least a bachelor’s degree face a 2.7% unemployment rate, levels not seen since 2015 outside of the pandemic. Young people in the U.S. have been facing similar hiccups, with teenagers facing the worst summer job market in nearly 80 years.
At the same time, AI is fueling demand for the very workers needed to build its infrastructure. Billions of dollars are flowing into semiconductor fabrication plants and data centers across states including Texas, California, Arizona, New York and Ohio, creating demand for electricians, technicians, construction workers, and advanced manufacturing specialists.
By 2030, the U.S. semiconductor industry is expected to face a shortage of roughly 157,000 skilled workers, according to McKinsey research cited by Bloomberg.
For many workers, those jobs offer a high-paying alternative to the traditional college pipeline. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, one in five semiconductor workers does not have a college degree, while the industry’s average annual salary was about $170,000 in 2020.
Beyond semiconductors, companies are pouring billions into skilled trades
The semiconductor boom is just one piece of a broader push to rebuild America’s skilled-trades workforce.
Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon highlighted an immediate need for more skilled workers to support shipbuilding and other major industrial projects.
“We need 300,000 electricians, welders, etc. to build ships in the next five or 10 years,” Dimon told CNBC, speaking from the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
His company simultaneously announced a $24 million investment through loans and philanthropic grants to support a new submarine manufacturing and assembly facility expected to create 450 permanent jobs as well as expand workforce training.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has also joined the efforts, recently launching a $115 million training program called America’s Workforce Academy. The effort seeks to specifically train data center technicians, and after completing the 5-week program, a job is guaranteed on one of Meta’s sites.
Earlier this year, Lowe’s announced a $250 million commitment to help train 250,000 skilled trade workers in fields like plumbing, carpentry, and electrical work over the next decade.
“In a world where administrative and analytical occupations are going to be increasingly dominated with the acceleration of AI,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison told Fortune at the time, “we think the skilled-trades initiative is going to be even more important here in the near future.”
Are you working in semiconductor manufacturing—or planning a career change into the industry? Fortune wants to hear from you. Email preston.fore@fortune.com.
