The number of jobs for wage and salary workers in South Korea gained 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year thanks to increased social welfare and public administration jobs, government data showed Thursday.

South Korea's economy had 19.08 million paid worker jobs in the October-December period, up 592,000 from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

Jobs in the social welfare sector came to 2.02 million, up 8.6 percent from a year ago, with public administration jobs up 8 percent to 1.17 million.

Jobs in the manufacturing sector fell 0.3 percent to 4.22 million, the data showed.

The number of paid employee jobs in the manufacturing industry had been on the decline since the second quarter of 2018.

The data also showed jobs for those aged 50 and older accounted for nearly 80 percent of the total fourth-quarter increase. Jobs for those aged 60 and older surged 13.8 percent, or by 280,000, and those for quinquagenarians expanded 5.2 percent, or by 221,000.

South Korea is one of the world's fastest aging societies, with the proportion of people aged 65 years or older to the entire population reaching 14.2 percent in 2018, making the country an aged society. (Yonhap)