South Korea’s economically active foreign population has hit one million mark for the first time.

According to 2016 foreigner employment data released by the Statistics Korea on Thursday, the number of foreigners older than 15 living in Korea came to 1,425,000 in May, up 51,000, or 3.7 percent, from the same month of the previous year. Among them, economically active population increased 19,000, or 1.9 percent, year-on-year to register 1,005,000.

The economic activity rate declined 1.3 percentage points from a year ago to 70.5 percent. The number of foreign employees rose 25,000, or 2.6 percent, year-on-year to 962,000, significantly slowing from growth pace of 10.1 percent in 2015 and 12.1 percent in 2014.

By nation, Chinese with Korean ethnicity accounted for 45.9 percent of all foreigners living in Korea, followed by Vietnamese with 7.4 percent and ethnic Chinese with 6.6 percent. Foreigners in their 30s accounted for 29.2 percent, followed by those aged between 15 and 29 with 26.6 percent and those in their 40s with 19.5 percent.

The majority of 45.4 percent of foreigners worked in the mining and manufacturing industries, 19.7 percent in the retail and wholesale businesses and accommodation and restaurant businesses and 19.4 percent in personal businesses and public services. The majority of 48.7 percent got monthly wage of 1 million won ($887) to 2 million won and 37.9 percent received 2 million won to 3 million won. About 9 percent got monthly pay of more than 3 million won.

The foreign employee ratio against employees in Korea stood at 3.6 percent, unchanged from last year. The ratio has been on steady rise from 3.1 percent in 2012. Jobless foreigners in Korea fell 5,000 from last year to 43,000. The unemployment rate of foreigners dropped 0.7 percentage point to 4.2 percent. Female unemployment rate came to 6.3 percent, higher than male unemployment rate of 3.2 percent.

By Kim Gyu-sik

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]