Employment up 3.0 percent as 841,000 jobs added on year

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Employment up 3.0 percent as 841,000 jobs added on year

Applicants look at job postings at a job fair held at COEX ,Seoul, earlier this month. [YONHAP]

Applicants look at job postings at a job fair held at COEX ,Seoul, earlier this month. [YONHAP]

Total employment in Korea grew by 841,000 in June from the same month a year earlier, and 28.5 million people had jobs in that month, a 3.0 percent year-on-year increase.  
 
Unemployment ticked up to 2.9 percent seasonally-adjusted from the 2.8 percent a month earlier — but down from 3.6 percent a year earlier and under 3 percent for five straight months — while the number of unemployed fell 205,000 year-on-year to 888,000.  
 
"Employment in health and welfare services, manufacturing, transportation and storage has increased, but employment in services, including finance and insurance and wholesale and retail, have declined," said Kong Mi-sook, Statistics Korea director for social statistics.  
 
Employment numbers have improved with the ending of pandemic restrictions, but the pace of employment increases has been slowing with a resurgence in the number of Covid-19 cases, high inflation and tighter monetary policy.  
 
Employment may also start taking a hit as the government seeks to reduce head count, which increased dramatically under the previous administration.
 
Over the next five years, the number of public servants will be reduced by 1 percent every year in each department. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety noted that during the Moon government, 120,000 new public servants were hired.  
 
"BA.4 or BA.5 variants are known to have a low possibility of patients becoming critically ill, and as such it is unlikely that there will be a sudden impact on the economy," said Lee Young-won, a senior researcher at Heungkuk Securities. "But an emergence of the virus variant and repeated resurgence could have a negative effect on the economy."
 
The number of manufacturing jobs grew 3.6 percent, and health and social welfare jobs 6.8 percent. In transportation and storage, the number of jobs was up 8 percent.
 
In wholesale and retail, employment fell 1.1 percent on year, while in finance, employment dropped 7.2 percent.  
 
Employment grew in all age groups. The total was up 1.7 percent for those above 60, 2.3 percent for those 15 to 29, 1.7 percent for those in their 30s, 0.7 percent for those in their 40s and 3.4 percent for those in their 50s.  
 
"Considering the global economic crisis and the changing administrative environment, we need to self-check the function of a government and personnel management," said Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min, noting the need to run Korea’s public services more effectively and efficiently.   
    
 
BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]
 

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]
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