The number of four-year university graduates without jobs surpassed 300,000 for the first time in the third quarter this year, taking up over 30 percent of the entire unemployment rate for the first time, Statistics Korea said Monday.A total of 985,000 were unemployed in the period, with 315,000 of them holding degrees from four-year universities. It is the first time that the figure has topped the 300,000 mark since 1999.The rising unemployment among college graduates is due to the combination

The South Korean government on Monday disclosed a list of 36,433 new citizens and corporate entities with unpaid local taxes exceeding 10 million won ($8,763) for one year or longer, officials said. The Ministry of the Interior said that it decided to reveal those on the list after they refused to specify their reasons for failing to pay their taxes even though they have been asked to do so for more than six months.According to the ministry, the list includes 29,848 individuals whose unpaid taxe

South Korea logged a trade surplus for 56 months in a row in September but its value fell sharply from a year earlier due to sluggish exports, customs data showed Monday.The country's trade surplus came to $6.9 billion last month, down 22.4 percent from $8.89 billion tallied a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.But it marked a 35-percent on-month jump from a seven-month low of $5.1 billion in August.The on-year decline in trade surplus was led by a steep decline i

The number of South Korea's casual employees with no guaranteed hours of work reached a five-year high in the third quarter of this year, government data showed Monday, due to a rise in time-selective jobs amid a prolonged economic slump.The number of employees who work for one hour to 17 hours per week came to 1.34 million as of the end of September this year, up 91,000 from the same period a year earlier, according to the data by Statistics Korea. This file photo shows job seekers waiting in l

Major South Korean banks are expected to post strong earnings in the third quarter despite the low interest rates and corporate restructuring as they focus more on profitable businesses, market watchers said Sunday. The combined net profit of the big four banks -- Shinhan Financial Group, KB Financial Group, Hana Financial Group and Woori Bank -- was estimated at 1.75 trillion won ($1.54 billion) in the July-September period, according to the data compiled by the market researcher FnGuide.    Cu

Economic policymakers and private economists are making vastly different forecasts of the South Korean economy’s growth rate this year and next.Vice Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok said last week he expects the economy to reach the government-set growth target of 2.8 percent this year, despite lingering downside risks in the remainder of the year.In June, the government revised down its 2016 growth forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 2.8 percent. The Korean economy, the fourth-largest in Asia, e

South Korea’s central bank cut its 2017 growth forecast to 2.8 percent from the July projection of 2.9 percent, citing bigger uncertainty in the global economy and risks from ongoing corporate restructuring here. The Bank of Korea said it left the 2016 growth outlook unchanged at 2.7 percent, despite a possible dent in Korean exports in the wake of the halt of production of Samsung Electronics’ smartphone Galaxy Note 7.The central bank’s 2017 growth projection is gloomier than the Finance Minist

South Korea’s exports dropped 18.2 percent in the first 10 days of October from a year earlier, data from the Korea Customs Service showed Tuesday.Total exports reached $9.47 billion from Oct. 1-10, down from $11.58 billion in the same period last year.Exports of semiconductors fell 5.9 percent on-year and those of wireless devices plunged 31.2 percent. Shipments of cars and auto parts declined 51.9 percent and 20.3 percent, respectively.The sharp drops were attributed to the ongoing partial str

The amount of mobile payments rose 53.3 percent in the second quarter from a quarter earlier, central bank data showed Tuesday, as a growing number of South Koreans are using smartphones for transactions.The daily average of mobile payments came to 20.7 billion won ($18 million) in the April-June period, up 7.2 billion won from the previous quarter, according to the data from the Bank of Korea.Mobile payments allow users to preregister their credit or debit cards and make transactions simply by

Despite a protracted economic downturn, South Korea’s tax revenues in the first seven months of this year increased by 20.1 trillion won ($18 billion) from a year earlier to reach 150 trillion won, according to recent data from the National Tax Service.The figure accounts for 67.2 percent of the annual revenue target set by the tax authorities, a 4.8 percentage point increase over the same period last year.This continuous rise in revenues is attributable to a booming property market, increasing

Ecological balance sheet reveals unsustainable lifestyle