Unemployment Rate For Young Koreans Rises To 8.2%

As recently reported, the jobless rate for young people in Korea, ages 15 to 29 years old, had risen to 8.2% in November. This is 0.1% higher than last year's 8.1%. The last time the unemployment rate for young people was this high was on 2003. These are all according to the data recently released by Statistics Korea.

The increase in the unemployment rate for the young people is said to have been caused by the ongoing corporate restructuring in troubled manufacturing industries. The effect is very evident with the employment number in the job market to have decreased by around 100,000 for the past two months.

"It is difficult to solve the employment issue in the short term," Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said in an interview last Wednesday.

"The government is focusing on securing more pay for low-wage earners as well as decreasing overdue wages," he added.

The country's overall unemployment rate (on both young and old employees) recorded a total of 3.1%. The figure remains unchanged since last year.

Although the total number of employed have increased by 339,000 compared to the previous year, this has nothing to do with the job market's positive standing. Even though the number of employed Koreans have reached 26.6 million this month, this is basically due to an improvement in the agriculture and fisheries industries which underwent a huge drop last year.

"The construction sector has increased jobs thanks to favorable market conditions, but the number of people employed by manufacturers saw a sharp decline," said Sim Won-bo, an official in charge of employment statistics.

The manufacturing industry was reported to have shed a total of 102,000 jobs amid sluggish exports and ongoing corporate restructuring.

Most of those who have lost their jobs, however, are said to have started their own business.