A senior citizen looks at job postings at a welfare center in western Seoul on April 17, 2023. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 18 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of jobs supplied by restaurants and bars rose on-year in the second half of 2022, data showed Tuesday, as the country returned to pre-pandemic normalcy.
Local restaurant businesses employed 1.6 million people in the July-December period, up 43,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.
Bars and non-alcoholic beverage establishments, including cafes, hired 479,000 people, also up 71,000 over the period, the data showed.
The increase came as more people resumed dining out or having gatherings following eased pandemic-related concerns.
Around 1.6 million people worked in the crop farming industry in the second half, up 53,000 from a year earlier.
The number of jobs in the higher education sector, on the other hand, slipped by 19,000 to 252,000.
The portion of workers earning monthly wages between 2 million won (US$1,516) and 3 million won came to 33.8 percent in the second half, down 0.3 percentage point from a year earlier.
The figure for those making between 1 million won and 2 million won declined 4.4 percentage points to 14.2 percent.
People making 4 million won or more took up 22.1 percent of the total workers, up 2.9 percentage points over the period.
The number of employed people came to 28.22 million last month, up around 469,000 from a year earlier, separate data from Statistics Korea showed earlier this month.
The country’s monthly job additions had been slowing for nine consecutive months through February when it added 312,000 jobs.
In March, the jobless rate edged down 0.1 percentage point on-year to 2.9 percent, which was the lowest level for any March since the agency adopted the current methods to analyze the job market in 1999.
(Yonhap)
