The labor shortage in various industries is worsening due to the low birthrate, the same also goes for the K-pop industry. Bang Si-Hyuk, the CEO of HYBE who raised BTS, reportedly expressed his serious concerns about the declining birth rate.
According to the statistic in February, the total fertility rate was 0.78. That is 0.03 less than the previous year and also the lowest number since 1970. The number of births has decreased by 11,500 from the previous year which reached 249,000.
The low birth rate era began in 2011 and the entertainment industry has already been affected by the declining population of young people in their 10s and 20s, the age group of people who should be debuting as K-pop idols, and also the target audience of K-pop. As a result, entertainment companies have been struggling to recruit trainees. This shortage has been a problem for several years and is becoming increasingly serious as the birth rate continues to decline.
Representatives from entertainment companies stated that they have been experiencing difficulties in casting trainees for a few years now. A said, "Even if we go to schools, we can see that the number of students is decreasing rapidly. Another representative, B, shared that it is difficult to recruit trainees, especially male ones. As a result, the K-pop industry has no choice but to turn to overseas recruitment to fill the gap. The industry is now casting its net wider as they start recruiting foreigners to become trainees.
A stated, "Countries like the US, Japan, and Thailand have already been scoured by large K-pop companies. There are hardly any small companies that don't recruit foreign trainees. To find K-pop talent, we have started to look at more diverse countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia that we haven't explored before."
-They can easily solve this problem by recruiting trainees from foreign countrees
-Is that the biggest problem you're concerned about right now?
-There's nothing we can do anyway
-That also means there would be fewer K-pop fans anyway...
-Is K-pop the only problem in this situation?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-87,000 people auditioned for My Teenage Girl and only 1,000 people auditioned for Fantasy Boys. That was really shocking to me. I think Mnet is the only one who can hold male idol survival shows now.
-That's funny because Bang Si-Hyuk doesn't even have children himself. Tell him to have one first before he starts talking.
-It's either K-pop will disappear or it will be taken over by foreigners
-This article is coming from the country that produces Peak Time, Fantasy Boys, Boys Planet, etc...?
-What??ㅋㅋㅋ So you're expecting us to have kids so that they can be K-pop idols??ㅋㅋㅋ
-Are you telling us to increase the birth rate just for K-pop?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-What about the sports industry?
