A senior citizen reads a flyer at a job fair in western Seoul, in this file photo taken Dec. 15, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEJONG, Jan. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Jobs in the public sector rose 2.6 percent on-year in 2021, data showed Thursday, as the government created more positions for vulnerable people amid the protracted pandemic.
A total of 2.83 million people were employed in 2021 by the public sector, up 73,000 from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The growth marked a slight drop from the 6.3 percent rise tallied in 2020.
They accounted for 10.3 percent of all employed people in 2021, up 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier.
Jobs offered by the public sector are positions in central and provincial governments, social security funds and state-run firms.
South Korea has been making efforts to increase the number of such state-arranged jobs for senior citizens, youths and others tohelp them cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and job market strains.
The government accounted for 85.5 percent of public jobs, while state-run businesses took up 14.5 percent, the data showed.
By gender, men held 1.48 million jobs, or 52.3 percent of the total public job positions in 2021, 1.1 times higher than those for women.
By age, people in their 40s accounted for the biggest slice of 26.7 percent, followed by those in their 30s and 50s with 24.5 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively.
From the previous year, the number of jobs for people in their 50s advanced 24,000, with those in their 60s also moving up 6,000.
The data also showed that around 28 percent of the people with jobs in the public sector have worked there for under three years, while 20.5 percent have served for 20 years or longer.
(Yonhap)
