By Cho Jin-seo
Staff reporter
The job market is showing clear signs of a fast recovery as the number of employed people increased for the third consecutive month in April, the government said Wednesday.
About 401,000 jobs were created in April alone, which was the largest monthly increase since August 2005. This has lowered the unemployment rate to 3.8 percent, which in January was at the year's high of 5 percent.
Manufacturing was the largest contributor to the recovery of the job market, creating 145,000 more jobs last month - the largest increase in 10 years. Entrepreneurship was also brisk among South Koreans. Some 5,600 new companies were established last month, which was again the highest since 2002.
"The recent trend shows that the economic recovery is beginning to improve in the private sector. It is giving us hope," said Yim Jong-yong, vice finance minister, in press briefing. "The quality and stability of employment conditions are apparently improving."
The number of unemployed jobseekers has gradually reduced from 1.2 million in January to 934,000 in April. About 800,000 new jobs were created during the same period. This discrepancy between the two statistics is due to seasonal effects. Many people in the farming, fishing and construction industries do not actively look for jobs during the winter, thus the nominal jobless rate looks better than it actually is.
When seasonally adjusted, actual job creations were fewer than 300,000, as shown in the graph.
Yim said that the positive signs shown in the job market won't lead to a broader adoption of "exit strategies" on the government's monetary and fiscal policies in the near future. "We have to consider many points, not only the job factor. For some time, the government will continue its macroeconomic policies and the exit strategy will be not be implemented too early or too late."
Despite the surge of jobs, the unemployment rate has actually just returned to the level of a year ago. When the financial crisis caused many to lose their jobs last year, the government expanded its budget to create temporary public-sector jobs such as planting flowers along roadsides and painting walls in order to alleviate unemployment.
Many of the temporary public employment programs will be over by the second half of the year. The government hopes that by then the growth in the private sector will be able to absorb the workers released from the government payroll, Yim said.