Korea’s jobless rate decelerated in May mainly due to more positions created in the service sector, a government report showed Wednesday.

The jobless rate stood at 3.1 percent last month, down slightly from 3.2 percent a year earlier, according to the report by Statistics Korea. Last month’s tally also represents a drop from the 3.5 percent reached in April.

Job creation accelerated with a total of 472,000 positions added to payrolls in May, compared with 355,000 a year earlier. The number is also an increase from 455,000 jobs created in April, and marks the eighth month in a row that more than 400,000 people joined the country’s workforce.

The employment rate edged up 0.4 percentage points from the year before to 60.5 percent. In the previous month employment stood at 59.7 percent.

“There was a steady increase in positions created in the service sector centered around wholesale and retail, healthcare and welfare, and education-related areas that contributed to the overall improvement in the job market,” the agency said in the report.

Wholesale and retail along with health and welfare added over 200,000 jobs last month that offset losses in manufacturing and farming that contracted by 67,000 and 21,000 jobs, respectively.

Reflecting improvements, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dipped to 3.2 percent from 3.3 percent tallied a year earlier, while the unemployment rate among young people between 15 and 29 stood at 8.0 percent, a drop from 8.5 percent tallied the month before, although a gain from 7.3 percent reported in May 2011.

The economically active population came to just under 25.94 million, up 1.8 percent from the same month a year earlier when numbers reached 25.48 million, according to the report.

The latest job data comes as Asia’s fourth-largest economy grew

2.8 percent in the first quarter in the face of lingering eurozone concerns and sluggish growth in the United States and China that has hurt trade and exports. South Korea grew 3.6 percent in 2011, with the government predicting growth to reach 3.7 percent this year.
 

(Yonhap News)