This file photo shows job openings at an employment center in Seoul on Jan. 10, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea added nearly 300,000 wage worker jobs in the fourth quarter of 2023, but the number grew at a slower pace, and jobs for young people continued to fall for more than a year, data showed Wednesday.
The number of paid employee jobs came to 20.75 million as of November 2023, up 293,000 from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea.
The country has seen slower on-year employment growth for eight quarters in a row since the beginning of 2022.
By age, jobs for those in their 20s and younger fell 97,000, or 3 percent, to 3.13 million, the fifth quarterly decrease, and the number of paid job positions for those in their 40s fell by 24,000 to 4.8 million in the fourth quarter.
But 249,000 jobs were added for people in their 60s and older to bring the total to 3.62 million, and people in their 50s and 30s also saw paid worker jobs increase by 113,000 and 52,000, respectively.
By sector, the health and social welfare segment had 107,000 more paid worker jobs, and the food and accommodation field had 39,000 more jobs in the fourth quarter. Hiring in the manufacturing sector rose by 36,000, the data showed.
(Yonhap)
