K-Pop Labels: So many rookies... So many groups... How?

If you haven't heard yet, SM Entertainment has launched a new boy group project called NCT. It's not a typical boy group project as members are subject to change or divide into sub-units. It currently consists of 40 members.

I pause at that number 40. 40. That means there were 40 trainees under SM, waiting for the day of their debuts. Does that shock anyone else?

I've done further research about this group NCT and I had to deliberately remind myself a couple of times that this not a group that has officially debuted yet. Project groups confuse me. Anyway, although there are 40 members in the group, only six have been revealed to the public and the oldest of these was born in 1994 while the youngest was born in 1999. 

I note the age here because whenever a new group emerges from a company that already holds their label on another group(s), the new group is naturally younger than their senior group(s). I once half-predicted that the K-pop boom will end, that there will soon be a day where the K-pop industry will exhaust itself with new boy group and girl group after another until rookie groups are no more. But what actually happened is that new groups continued to emerge and have risen to fame, pushing off older groups to veteran status. And new groups are still debuting today. And these rookie groups have gotten young.

If my past self thought ever thought there were just too many groups, my past self was wrong to worry back in 2013. 

So there seems to be no end to the formation of K-pop groups every single year. And this shows that there are more trainees under various labels waiting their turn to perform on stage, on camera. I want to know how that is possible. The competition in the K-pop world is fiercer than ever yet entertainment companies keep pumping out more? Are they stubborn? Are they simply trying to rid themselves of hopeful trainees? I doubt that since it appears these labels accept more and more with how young K-pop stars are nowadays. (I suppose K-pop stars have always been young, but I'm pointing out the fact that young members in rookie groups indicate labels are still recruiting trainees).

In 2013 and now, there have been many unseen groups broken up. Yet the new K-pop group keeps forming. And I want to know...how? I mean, why? And how do these rookie groups survive the fierce Korean entertainment industry?

A lot of this has been partial rambling and partial critical thinking. I've been reading the Naver Webtoon called 아이돌 연구소 (Idol Laboratory) that outlines the mechanics behind K-pop groups surviving in the ocean of K-pop groups (perhaps I'll talk about this webtoon exclusively in another blog post). So I guess I do know how in terms of mechanics but I'm asking why labels keep pumping out more and more groups. It's more of a rhetorical question.