Students are looking for job listings at a job bulletin board located at Kunkook University [Photo by Namkung Jin-woong = timeid@ajunews.com]
South Korea’s youth jobless rate (ages from 15 to 29) marked highest ever since 1999, a time when the nation underwent an economic crisis.
According to Statistics Korea’s research, youth unemployment rate marked 9.2 percent last year. Jobless young people have been increasing in last few years. 7.5 percent in 2012, 8 percent in 2013, and 9 percent in 2014.
Actual numbers of people who gets employed had decreased. Last year’s employed people were 25,936,000. Only 337,000 increased from 2014’s number. Statistics Korea official explained why. “Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in Korea last year dramatically affected the job market,” he said. “But the numbers started to increase again in the second half of the year.”
But percentage of people under employment had increased a little. Last year’s rate was 60.3 percent, which rose 0.1 percent point from 2014. The official said that people who stayed unemployed for a long time rushed to the job market resulting in an increase.
Experts in financial and economic industry foresee that this year’s employment won’t get any better. Because of failing economics around the globe, including China made companies to drawback, looking for a way to survive.
아주경제 박세진 기자 = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
