South Korea reported the slowest on-year job growth in more than three years in May and the unemployment rate among young people reported a marked growth, data showed Wednesday.

The number of employed people came to 28.92 million last month, up 80,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

It marked the fewest on-year job additions since February 2021, when the country shed 473,000 positions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to South Korea’s News Agency (Yonhap).

In April, the country had 261,000 new jobs, after adding 173,000 new positions a month earlier. In January and February, the monthly job additions surpassed the 300,000 level.

The decline also came as the number of jobs for those aged 15-29 dropped by 173,000, the largest fall since January 2021 when the country lost 314,000 jobs for young people.

The unemployment rate for the age group came to 6.7 percent by going up 0.9 percentage point, or the largest increase since February 2021.

Source: Qatar News Age
ncy