Employment market for youths ever tighter

By Kang Seung-woo

Despite a strong recovery in the job market young people are still facing a dismal prospect of landing a job, a government report showed Wednesday.

According to Statistics Korea, the unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 29 stood at 8.5 percent in January, up from 8 percent the previous month. The number of those out of work was 363,000 in January, up 27,000 from December. Compared with a year ago, it fell by 0.8 percentage points. The nation’s jobless rate was at 3.8 percent.

The rate for youths dropped to 6.4 percent in November, as the private sector hired more workers, driven by an economic recovery, but it rose back to 8 percent the following month.

Among major economies, the jobless rates for this age bracket in the United States and France were at 18.9 percent and 25.7 percent, respectively, while they remain below 8 percent in Japan and Germany.

“Although major companies have recruited more people than during the global financial crisis, their demand cannot meet the soaring number of young job seekers,” said Sohn Min-jung, a fellow research of the Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI).

He said that youth unemployment is likely to continue next month.

“Between December and February, young job seekers are active in finding a job, as graduates will leave school and undergraduates are also searching for part-time jobs. As a result, the high jobless rate among them will not decline.”

The number of working people stood at 23.19 million last month, up 331,000 from a year earlier. The nation’s job growth reached the 300,000 mark in October 2010 and it has been above that level for four straight months. In December, it recorded 455,000.

“Job growth continued mainly in the non-farming sector such as manufacturing, health and social welfare services, and science and technology,” the state-run statistical office said.

“The government forecast that job growth will reach the 400,000 mark in January, but due to foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease and the cold spell, the workforce in agricultural, fishery and forestry industries declined by more than 100,000,” said Yoon Jong-won, director general of the economic policy bureau at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

“But solid growth in the non-farm sector put the job market in recovery (from the global economic slowdown).”

The overall unemployment rate of 3.8 percent was down from 5 percent from a year ago, but it was up from the previous month’s reading of 3.5 percent.

The number of job seekers dropped to 918,000 from 1.21 million during the same month a year earlier, when the nation was still faced with the fallout from the global financial crisis.