By Jhoo Dong-chan
Jobseekers experienced the worst employment conditions last year despite the government's drive to create more quality jobs, according to Statistics Korea, Wednesday.
The job market was especially tough for young people. The unemployment rate of people aged between 15 and 29 marked 9.9 percent, the highest figure recorded by the agency since it started collecting data in 2000.
The number of unemployed in the age group was the same as 2016 at 435,000.
Those employed totaled 26.55 million in 2017, up 317,000 from a year earlier.
However, the number of the unemployed stood at 1.03 million, the highest the agency has seen. The 2016 figure was 1.01 million.
The unemployment rate was 3.7 percent, the same as 2016.
"The youth job market is still experiencing difficulties," said Bin Hyun-joon, head of the employment statistics division at Statistics Korea.
"A massive number of discouraged workers failed to get jobs during the public servant recruiting period around the end of last year. They were counted as unemployed, making the data look even worse."
The nation's youth unemployment growth rate was also the steepest among OECD member countries.
In April last year, the jobless rate of the age group stood at 11.2 percent, a 2.5 percentage points increase from the 8.7 percent recorded in December 2016. This was the sharpest growth by far in the OECD, and the figure is also the highest since 1998 when the nation was struck by the Asian financial crisis.
Job openings in the manufacturing industry declined, failing to meet the Moon Jae-in administration's market expectations.
Along with jobless young people, the number of working-age people who gave up looking for jobs reached 483,000 last year, up 36,000 from 2016.
The economically inactive population also increased by 2,000 to record 16.17 million last year.
The Moon administration aimed to raise the number of the employed by 300,000 every month, but failed to do so for the last three consecutive months. In December, the number of the employed grew by 253,000, marking three consecutive months of the figure being below the target. It was also the first time the figure has stayed below 300,000 for three straight months since March 2010.
Jobseekers experienced the worst employment conditions last year despite the government's drive to create more quality jobs, according to Statistics Korea, Wednesday.
The job market was especially tough for young people. The unemployment rate of people aged between 15 and 29 marked 9.9 percent, the highest figure recorded by the agency since it started collecting data in 2000.
The number of unemployed in the age group was the same as 2016 at 435,000.
Those employed totaled 26.55 million in 2017, up 317,000 from a year earlier.
However, the number of the unemployed stood at 1.03 million, the highest the agency has seen. The 2016 figure was 1.01 million.
The unemployment rate was 3.7 percent, the same as 2016.
"The youth job market is still experiencing difficulties," said Bin Hyun-joon, head of the employment statistics division at Statistics Korea.
"A massive number of discouraged workers failed to get jobs during the public servant recruiting period around the end of last year. They were counted as unemployed, making the data look even worse."
The nation's youth unemployment growth rate was also the steepest among OECD member countries.
In April last year, the jobless rate of the age group stood at 11.2 percent, a 2.5 percentage points increase from the 8.7 percent recorded in December 2016. This was the sharpest growth by far in the OECD, and the figure is also the highest since 1998 when the nation was struck by the Asian financial crisis.
Job openings in the manufacturing industry declined, failing to meet the Moon Jae-in administration's market expectations.
Along with jobless young people, the number of working-age people who gave up looking for jobs reached 483,000 last year, up 36,000 from 2016.
The economically inactive population also increased by 2,000 to record 16.17 million last year.
The Moon administration aimed to raise the number of the employed by 300,000 every month, but failed to do so for the last three consecutive months. In December, the number of the employed grew by 253,000, marking three consecutive months of the figure being below the target. It was also the first time the figure has stayed below 300,000 for three straight months since March 2010.
![[INTERVIEW] 'The Flag': Kwon Jin-ah's love letter to people chasing their dreams](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/286500d853334c96ab51e56d74fe38f2.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
