South Korea's jobless rate inched down in September from a month earlier, but the pace of job creation slowed to a three-month low, a government report showed Wednesday.
According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3.2 percent last month, down from 3.3 percent a month earlier. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained unchanged at
3.5 percent.
The number of employed people in September came to 25.91 million, up 451,000 from a year earlier. This is the slowest on-year job growth since June when 398,000 jobs were added to the economy.
"The slowing pace of job creation last month is due in part to the continued decline in the number of jobs added in the farming sector," said Sim Won-bo, head of the agency's employment statistics division. "We still can't say that the overall job creation trend has turned downward with the single month data."
The farming sector saw its payrolls shrink by 128,000 compared with a year earlier, while the financial and insurance sector lost
37,000 jobs over the same period, the report showed.
The manufacturing sector added 173,000 jobs. The health and social welfare service sector and the retail and wholesale sector gained 153,000 and 151,000 jobs, respectively.
The number of unemployed people stood at 849,000 last month, down from the previous month's 890,000, and the jobless population in their 20s and 50s declined faster than in other age groups.
The unemployment rate for those aged 15-29 was 8.1 percent in September, down from 8.4 percent tallied a month earlier. It was still higher than the previous year's 7.6 percent, the report showed. (Yonhap)
