South Korea’s unemployment rate in March near historical low

The unemployment rate in the country stood near a historical low in March, while the number of people employed rose for a 13th consecutive month.
By: | April 18, 2022
Topics: Job Cuts | News | Recruitment | South Korea

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March was unchanged at 2.7% from February, the lowest since the data release began in 1999. On a year-on-year basis, the rate fell from 3.8% in March last year.

Statistics Korea’s latest data also showed that the country added 831,000 jobs compared with March a year ago, after 1,037,000 jobs were added in February, extending gains for a 13th straight month. The number of jobs added in January was 1,135,000.

The number of employed persons totalled 27.75 million persons in March, an increase of 831,000 persons or 3.1% year-on-year. The employment rate for those aged 15 or higher rose by 1.6 percentage points to 61.4% in March year-on-year.

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The economically inactive population, who had no willingness to seek a job and remained unemployed, was down 277,000 to 16,592,000 in March. It has been on a downward trend for 13 straight months.

The number of temporary workers saw an increase of 3.7% year-on-year to 4.65 million in March 2022. On a month-on-month basis, the growth was 2.7%.