South Korea suffers sharpest decline in jobs for October in six months
- Claire Lee
- Topics: Home Page - News, Job Cuts, News, Recruitment, Restructuring, South Korea
South Korea has reported its sharpest decline in jobs for October in six months, with its number of employed workers reaching 27.09 million, 421,000 fewer than a year earlier, according to data by Statistics Korea.
In particular, the employment rate for workers aged between 15 and 64 reached 65.9%, falling 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate for young adults, aged between 15 and 29, came to 8.3% in October, up 1.1 percentage points from the year prior.
In October, the number of unemployed people reached 1.03 million, an increase of 164,000 year-on-year. Unemployment numbers rose across almost all age groups.
Among the sectors that were hit hard in October include manufacturing; accommodation and food service; and the wholesale and retail sector. These sectors suffered as people refrained from visiting physical shops over fear of the spread of the coronavirus.
READ: Number of layoffs by SMEs spikes in South Korea
However, the public administration sector added 123,000 jobs, while the social welfare sector added 105,000 roles.
The country has reported job losses every month since March, when it shed about 195,000 jobs due to the onslaught of the pandemic.
