À̹ÌÁö È®´ë South Korea¡¯s job conditions deteriorated to crisis-hit levels, with the unemployment rate for January the highest since 2010 and the number of people without jobs the largest in 19 years.
The unemployment rate in January was 4.5 percent, up 0.8 percentage point from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea on Wednesday. The rate was the highest since the 5.0 percent recorded in 2010 in the wake of the global financial crisis.
The number of jobless people surged 204,000 on year to 1,224,000, the highest January figure since 2000 when it reached 1,232,000 amid massive layoffs following the 1998-1999 bailout crisis.
The number of new hires in January was 26,232,000, adding just 19,000 jobs year over year. The job gains were the lowest in five months and well below the government monthly target of 150,000.
Monthly job additions have mostly hovered below 100,000 since July 2018. They showed a sharp uptick of 165,000 in November before retreating to 34,000 in December.
À̹ÌÁö È®´ë Hong Nam-ki, deputy prime minister and finance minister, in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday called the current job situation ¡°grave¡± and vowed to mobilize ¡°all possible means¡± to meet the employment target.
While promoting a better environment for companies to invest and hire, the government will create an additional 2,000 jobs in the public sector for a sharply increased quota of 23,000 for this year, he said.
À̹ÌÁö È®´ë The protracted slump in the manufacturing sector appeared to have a dampening effect on corporate hiring. The latest January figures were also grimmer than usual as they were compared to the same month last year when job gains numbered 334,000, according to Statistics Korea.
Manufacturing jobs were cut by 170,000, the largest decline since January 2017. There seems to be no sign of any immediate recovery in the manufacturing sector amid softening demand at home and abroad. Retailers lost 67,000 jobs while the restaurant and accommodation sector shed 40,000 jobs.
Job additions were sustained mostly by the public sector with little sign of improvement on the private front. Hiring in social welfare services soared to a record 179,000.
Korea¡¯s job market prospects remain glum. The state think tank Korea Development institute (KDI) on Tuesday reiterated its warning of a slowdown in the domestic economy in its latest monthly report, citing weakening domestic demand on top of falling exports. KDI projected Korea¡¯s economy to grow 2.5 percent this year, lower than government forecasts of 2.6 to 2.7 percent.
By Chung Seok-woo and Kim Hyo-jin
[¨Ï Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]