South Korea’s unemployment rate falls a little

December 14th, 2011 - 1:58 pm ICT by IANS  

Seoul, Dec 14 (IANS) South Korea’s unemployment rate fell to 2.9 percent last month as the number of people employed grew sharply in the service industry, a government report showed Wednesday.

The unemployment rate stood at 2.9 percent in November, down 0.1 percentage point from the same month of last year, according to the Statistics Korea. The rate was unchanged from a month before.

The number of unemployed, who failed to land work despite job-hunting efforts, contracted to 730,000 last month from 737,000 a year earlier, reported Xinhua.

“Sharp growth in job creation, mainly driven by the service sector, led the number of unemployed to contract last month, dragging down the jobless rate,” the statistical agency said.

Jobless rate among those aged between 15 and 29 came in at 6.8 percent in November, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous year. The rate was up 0.1 percentage point from the previous month.

The total number of working people reached 24.59 million in November, up 479,000 from a year earlier. The employment rate rose 0.6 percentage points on-year to 64.4 percent last month.

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Business |

Subscribe