South Korea’s unemployment in October shot up to the highest for the month since 2005 as troubled shipping and shipbuilders began shedding jobs in mass scale. The joblessness for people under 30 in October reached a level last seen in 1999 following the Asian financial crisis.

According to October employment data released by the Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the number of employed stood at 26,577,000, up 278,000 from the same month last year. The year-on-year addition has dropped for two straight months after the figure expanded to 387,000 briefly in August against the year-ago period hit by the Middle East respiratory syndrome.

The ongoing restructuring and slowdown in shipbuilding industry took a heavy toll on the manufacturing sector, dragging down the number of employed in the corresponding sector to 115,000 in October. October’s drop in the number of employed in manufacturing sector is the largest since September 2009 with 118,000.

The employment rate in October gained 0.2 percentage point from the same period of last year to 61.1 percent.

The employment rate among the age group of 15 to 64 or the rate under the guideline of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development came to 66.5 percent in October, up 0.3 percentage point from the same month last year. The employment rate among the age group of 15 to 29 gained 0.7 percentage points to 42.4 percent from a year ago period.

Jobless rate increased 0.3 percentage point on year to reach 3.4 percent, the largest unemployment rate for the month of October since 2005 with 3.6 percent.

The number of unemployed in their 40s improved but the overall number of jobless people expanded by 84,000 from a year ago period as the number of the unemployed in their 20s and 30s escalated.

The unemployment rate of the youth gained 1.1 percentage points on year to 8.5 percent, highest on-month gain for October since 1999 with 8.6 percent. The number of youth without jobs increased by 54,000 compared to the same period last year.

The real unemployment rate that reflects the actual number of unemployed including part-time workers and people in between jobs seeking full-time employment stood at 10.0 percent.

By Kim Gyu-sik

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