Jobs in Korea were added 5,000 in July against a year-ago, more than halved from a month ago and flimsy against the usual monthly average over 300,000 up until last year to underscore worsening impact on the job front from government measures that drove up labor costs.

According to employment data released by the Statistics Korea on Friday, the number of employed in July tallied 27,083,000, up 5,000 from the same month last year. The last time job additions were so few was in January 2010 in the aftermath of 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Payroll additions hovered below 200,000 threshold from February - 104,000 in February, 112,000 in March, 123,000 in April, 72,000 in May, and 106,000 in June. Monthly job additions averaged 316,000 last year.

Hiring significantly dropped after minimum wage went up 16.4 percent from January. Cutback in workweek hours from 68 to 52 starting July is expected to affect job count in the second half. Moreover, the minimum wage also would go up by another 10.9 percent from January next year, suggesting job conditions are unlikely to improve any time soon.

The unemployed in the manufacturing sector fell 2.7 percent due to sluggishness in large industrial sites of motor vehicles and ships. Other sectors heavily hit were mostly services areas that hire by non-permanent or hourly basis following the jump in hourly minimum wage.

The number of facility maintenance and lease service sector shed 101,000 jobs, or 7.2 percent lost compared with a year ago, while education service sector was minus 78,000 jobs, or 4 percent.

The employment rate in July fell 0.3 percentage point to 61.3 percent from a year ago. The employment rate for people aged between 15 and 64, the standard of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), stood at 67.0 percent, down 0.2 percentage point compared to year earlier.

The number of unemployed reached 1,039,000 in July, up 81,000 from the same month last year. It is the seventh month in a row for the number of jobless people to stay above the 1-million threshold. The last time the figure stayed above 1-millon threshold this long was between June 1999 and March 2003.

The jobless rate rose 0.3 percentage point on year to 3.7 percent. The unemployment rate of the youth aged between 15 and 29 was 9.3 percent, the same as a year earlier.

By Lee Yu-sup and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]