Korea’s youth unemployment rose to a 16-year high in January as a sluggish economy created more jobs for senior workers than fresh and inexperienced candidates.

According to Statistics Korea, the jobless rate for workers aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent last month, up 0.3 percentage point from the same month in 2015. Compared to January figures of the earlier years, the level is the highest since 2000, when the number stood at 11 percent.

“An increasing number of youth entered the job market during the winter vacation and graduation period,” said Sim Won-bo, head of the agency’s employment statistics division. 

“As many preferred a job with a stable employment outlook, the average job-seeking period turned out longer, which attributed to the increase in the jobless rate,” he said. 

The number of employed people in this age group totaled 3.94 million in January, up 25,000 from a year earlier. The employment rate also gained 0.4 percentage point to 41.7 percent.

The overall jobs data doesn’t look bad, the Finance Ministry’s Kim Jin-myung said, despite the unfavorable economic conditions in January with exports sharply down and external risks up.

“The momentum in employment growth is continuing,” he said.

The economy added 339,000 new jobs last month compared to the year before, raising the total number of employed people in Korea to 25.4 million. It was the smallest growth in 11 months, but around the same level as the average monthly gain of 337,000 in 2015.

Wednesday’s data also confirmed that job creation in Korea is centered on older age groups.

Some 194,000 new jobs were created for workers aged 60 or above and around 115,000 for 50-something workers, compared to just 25,000 for the 15-24 age group.

The country’s overall employment rate stood at 58.8 percent, up 0.1 percentage point over the cited period, with the number of economically active people rising 1.3 percent on-year to 26.4 million in January.


By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)