Jobs offered by the government and state-run companies grew by the largest-ever in 2019 on the back of a state policy to increase hiring in the public sector, data showed Wednesday.

A total of 2.6 million people were employed in 2019 by the public sector, up 151,000, or 6.1 percent, from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

Jobs offered by the public sector are positions in central and provincial governments and state-run firms.

The tally marked the largest on-year increase since 2016, when the statistics agency began compiling related data. It also compared with a 2.6 percent on-year increase in the country's total employment for all of 2019.

Since taking office in May 2017, President Moon Jae-in has placed top priority on creating more jobs, promising to add 810,000 new jobs in the public sector during his single five-year term.

Jobs provided by government agencies grew 123,000 on-year to 2.22 million in 2019, while state-run firms added 28,000 jobs to 382,000, the data showed.

The tallies also marked the biggest on-year rise since 2016, the office added.

The portion of jobs in the public sector accounted for 9.5 percent of the country's labor market in 2019, up 0.5 percentage point from a year earlier.

The number of job posts held by public workers the same as the previous year reached 22.5 million in 2019, while 194,000 posts were replaced by new faces after retirement or resignation and 155,000 new job posts were created.

By gender, men held 141,200 jobs, or 54.3 percent, of the total public job positions in 2019, 1.19 times higher than those for women, the data showed. (Yonhap)