Korea‘s jobless rate goes up in December

South Korea’s jobless rate edged up in December from a month earlier as fewer people were hired by agriculture and other sectors due to cold weather, a government report showed Wednesday.

According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3.2 percent last month, up from 3.1 percent in November.

The December figure dropped 0.2 percentage point from a year earlier.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for December was 3.4 percent, unchanged from the previous month.

For the whole of 2015, South Korea’s jobless rate hit 3.6 percent, up 0.1 percentage point from a year ago, marking the highest figure since 2010, when it reached 3.7 percent.

“Employment usually goes down during the winter season as outdoor businesses like agriculture or tourism hire fewer people,” said Sim Won-bo, head of the agency’s employment statistics division.

The farming and fisheries sector cut 27,000 jobs last month, down 2.5 percent from a year earlier, and the wholesale and retail businesses removed 86,000 jobs from their payrolls.

The national employment rate reached 59.9 percent last month, down from 60.8 percent a month earlier.

The latest data showed the number of employed people reached slightly more than 25.88 million last month, down from 26.25 million tallied in November.

From a year earlier, the employment rate gained 0.5 percentage point, with 495,000 people newly hired, the report showed.

The employment rate rose to 60.3 percent last year from 60.2 percent, with a total of 25.93 people employed.

The number of economically active people came in at 26.9 million in 2015, up from 25.6 million a year earlier.

“Last year‘s jobless rate increased, but the number of employees rose. We can see the job market has been improving,” said Sim, the statistical official.

The latest report, however, showed that labor market conditions for younger people remained tougher than for other age groups.

The unemployment rate for those aged 15-29 reached a record 9.2 percent in 2015, up from 9 percent tallied a year earlier and the highest level since 1999, according to the data.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)