70% of dental hygiene graduates preferred non-dental career

South Korea: A survey conducted by the Dental Hypothesis Job Recruitment System Activation TF found that 7 out of 10 graduates of the dental hygiene department desired a career other than dentistry.

The large-scale survey targeting 3,700 dental workers – including dentists, and prospective workers – explored the causes and solutions of the job shortage over the next six times. The results of the survey will aid in the reorganisation of the current job search site.

According to the survey results, only 30.8% of the respondents wanted a job at a dental clinic after graduation. The remaining 69.2% were hoping for a different career path. Among them, dental hospitals accounted for the most at 28.3%, followed by ‘dental university hospitals and general hospitals (23.1%)’ and ‘public health center officials (9.7%)’.

When choosing a hospital or clinic, they considered the atmosphere, welfare level, and wages to be important factors.

In particular, some responded that they would choose a career other than that of dental hygienist.

The preferred career paths include: Medical device companies (2%), university or graduate school (2.8%), and other occupations (0.4%).

Most important factor for future career

The respondents picked the following as the most important factor for dental hygiene graduates to work in dental hospitals and clinics: ‘Hospital atmosphere’ (26.3%); ‘welfare level (27.5%)’; ‘wage (27.1%)’; ‘ Improving clinical capacity (17 %)’; ‘location (1.2%)’, and ‘scale (0.8%)’.

When asked about their intended length of tenure period at a dental medical institution, they answered: ‘Less than 5 years (50.2%)’, ‘more than 5 years’ (40.9%) and ‘don’t know’ (8.9%).

The researchers of the survey believe that this reflected the profession’s actual industry statistics, which has been experiencing a high employee turnover. Actual turnover figures were: 1–3 years (30%), 3–5 years (19.4%), 5–10 years (16.2%), 10 years or more (24.7%), less than 1 year (0.8%).

On a positive note, employment sentiments at dental medical institutions remain buoyant: ‘Positive’ 74.5%, ‘normal’ 21.5%, and ‘negative’ 4%.

Job search channel

The main channel for dental hygiene graduates to obtain job search information was ‘Internet community’ (30%), followed by ‘Recruitment and job search sites’ (27.9%), ‘School acquaintances’ (20.2%), ‘Job fair or seminar’ (8.5%), ‘Field training’ (8.1%), and ‘SNS’ (3.6%).

The Dental Hypothesis Job Recruitment System Activation TF survey was conducted from 10 January – 7 February.