South Korea's jobless rate edged down in April from a month earlier as more people were hired in the manufacturing and service sectors, a government report said Wednesday.

According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3.9 percent last month, down from 4 percent in March. The number remained unchanged from a year earlier.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for April also stood pat compared with the 3.7 percent in March.

The number of employed people reached 25.90 million last month, with 216,000 new jobs being created on-year, the report showed.

Manufacturing added 167,000 jobs last month with health care and social services contributing 83,000, along with 63,000 for the construction sector, the report showed.

The increase in jobs, however, represents a sharp drop from 338,000 new positions in March. This is the lowest increase since 201,000 jobs were created in February of 2013.

"The biggest reason for the drop was the bad weather that seriously hurt the number of positions created in the farming and fisheries sectors," said Sim Won-bo, head of the agency's employment statistics division.

He said less demand for jobs in agrofisheries adversely affected employment among people in their 50s and 60s who in recent years have been actively engaged in finding work.

Agrofisheries-related jobs fell by 135,000 last month compared to the year before.

"Besides bad weather, the 'high base effect' of 581,000 jobs created in April 2014 played a part in the weaker numbers last month," the official said.

According to the report, the unemployment rate for young people between the ages of 15 and 29 fell to 10.2 percent in April from 10.7 percent a month earlier. Data, however, showed April's tally is the highest reported for the month since March of 1999.

The country's employment rate moved down 0.3 percentage point to 60.3 percent in April.

The so-called labor underutilization indicator inched down to 11.3 percent last month from 11.8 in March and a record high of 12.5 percent in February.

The indicator is based on guidelines made by the International Labor Organization and reflects the number of people who are "underemployed" and those who currently hold part-time jobs but want full-time work.

This data also counts unemployed people who have given up looking for work not by choice but due to other circumstances, which makes them potential job seekers.

The still-high number is an indication that employment conditions felt by ordinary people are worse than what official jobless figures show.

Starting last year, the statistical office decided to provide the indicator to give a more accurate picture of the country's labor market situation.

The finance ministry said that despite the drop in new jobs added to the workforce, there was a slight dip in the jobless rate, which is a good sign. It further said that employment figures as measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for people between 15 through 64, actually edged up 0.2 percentage point last month from a year earlier.

"April marked the 23rd month in a row that the OECD-based employment numbers advanced," it said.

The ministry predicted steady improvements in economic conditions will allow job creation numbers to move back up. (Yonhap)