3개월 연속 취업자 증가 10만명대...금융위기 이후 최악
New employment figures once again reflect the hard time faced by those looking for work here in the nation.
The data shows only about 1-hundred-20-thousand new jobs were added last month.
Kim Hyesung looks beyond the discouraging digits.
The number of newly-added jobs in South Korea was just above the 100-thousand mark in April.
Statistics Korea said Wednesday that 26-point-eight million people were employed in Korea last month,... up a mere 123-thousand from the same period last year.
In January, job growth was within the 300-thousand range.
But it has slumped into the 100-thousand range over the last three months,… marking the worst performance since the 2008 global financial crisis.
It's also just a third the level of average jobs growth added last year, which was at around 300-thousand.
New jobs were created in the healthcare and public sector, but the education, services, retail and wholesale sectors saw new job openings drop sharply.
Statistics Korea added that the shrinking working age population, people between the ages of 15 and 64, was another reason for the slower pace of newly-added jobs.
"Services industry jobs declined due to the minimum wage hike. The manufacturing sector saw the number of jobs drop amid the ongoing restructuring of the shipbuilding industry. In the mid-to-long run, enhancing Korea's competitiveness in manufacturing will be key to boosting job growth."
The overall unemployment rate came in at four-point-one percent last month,... down one-tenth of a percentage point on-year.
Youth unemployment also fell by zero-point-five percentage point, but was still stubbornly high at ten-point-seven percent.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.
