By Park Hyong-ki
The number of unemployed topped 1 million for the first time last year.
The unemployment rate for the young people aged between 19 and 25 reached a record 9.8 percent, according to Statistics Korea, Wednesday.
The number of jobless people stood at 1.012 million in December, up 36,000 from a year earlier.
The country was only able to create 299,000 jobs last year, falling short of the government’s target of 300,000. It marks the lowest since 2009 when 72,000 jobs disappeared in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
The number of jobs created has fallen for two straight years. In 2015, the country only added 337,000 jobs, compared with 533,000 in 2014 and 386,000 in 2013.
The total number of employed came to some 26.2 million in December, up 289,000 from the same period a year ago. The job growth fell back to below 300,000 after it reached 339,000 in November and 278,000 in October last year.
The rising joblessness came as the manufacturing sector has been reducing their workforce as shipbuilding, shipping and petrochemical companies have been trying to cut costs and pay down their debt amid a slowdown.
Given that employment in manufacturing accounts for about 14 percent of the total, the Labor Ministry and the state-run statistics agency said that a rise in unemployment especially in shipbuilding has “increased the overall joblessness.”
Some 115,000 people lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector, whose joblessness rate has been declining for six consecutive months since July, 2016.
This has fueled the country’s overall unemployment to reach 1.01 million, up 36,000 from 2015.
Korea’s overall jobless rate stood at 3.7 percent last year, up 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier.