By IANS,
Seoul : South Korea’s jobless rate fell to 2.8 percent last month due to strong job creation in the manufacturing sector, but job creation for all industries slowed sharply due to a base effect, a government report showed Wednesday.
The unemployment rate came in at 2.8 percent in October, down 0.1 percentage point from a month earlier, according to Statistics Korea. From a year before, the rate was down 0.1 percentage point, reported Xinhua.
After peaking at 4.2 percent in February, the jobless rate has trended down to 2.8 percent last month that is nearly at full employment level. The October figure was the lowest this year.
The unemployment rate gauges the percentage of people unemployed who actively sought jobs over the past four weeks to the economically active population, or the sum of people employed and those unemployed.
The number of people unemployed, who failed to land work despite job-hunting efforts, reached 718,000 last month, down 18,000 from a year earlier.
“Reduction in the unemployed was affected by the manufacturing industry-led job creation and Chuseok holiday that fell on the survey period,” the statistical agency said in a press release.
The jobless rate among those aged between 15 and 29 came to 6.9 percent in October, down 0.2 percentage point from a year before. The rate was down 0.2 percentage point from the previous month.