Jobseekers look at recruitment notices during a job fair of foreign-invested companies at a convention center in Seoul on June 14, 2018, in this file photo. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — The employment shock that has come about with the coronavirus pandemic has hit women harder than men.
Statistics Korea reported a 28.8 percent increase in the number of unemployed women last month (427,000) compared to the same period in the previous year, an unprecedented rate not seen since July 2014 (29.4 percent).
In contrast, the number of unemployed men (540,000) increased by a mere 1 percent.
The number of employed women also dropped by a wider margin than men, down 1.6 percent year on year to 11.7 million last month. The number of employed men (15.5 million), in contrast, only decreased by 0.5 percent.
Employment among women has dropped by larger margins than men since March, after accommodation, food, education, and other person-to-person businesses, with higher female participation, were hit hard by the coronavirus.
The economically inactive population, those who don’t have a job and aren’t looking for work, reached 16.7 million people last month, an increase of 431,000 compared to last year. Among them, 219,000 were women, and 212,000 were men.
The female proportion of the economically inactive population has been rising much more quickly than that of men since April.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
