January 30, 2015 12:24
Unemployment among young people aged 15-29 in Seoul soared to over 10 percent last year, for the first time since the financial crisis of the late 1990s.
Some 241,000 people were unemployed in Seoul last year, up 14.8 percent on-year, according to data published by the Seoul city government on Wednesday.
The figure is the highest since statistics began in 2000.
Young people made up 100,000 of them, up 20.5 percent from 83,000 a year earlier, and making up 10.3 percent of all people in the age group.
The number of unemployed people aged 30-59 stood at 123,000, up 8.8 percent or 10,000 on-year, and among over-60s 17,000 were jobless, up 21.4 percent or 3,000.
But employment increased substantially among people over 55 in the last decade, from 633,000 in 2004 to a whopping 1.1 million last year, while employment among young people dwindled by 277,000 to 872,000 over the same period.
Working people over 55 have outnumbered employed young people since 2012.
In 1989, young people made up 35.9 percent of people in work and those over 55 a mere 6.6 percent. But now the proportions are 16.9 percent and 21.7 percent.
The employment rate among young people stood at 43.7 percent last year, dropping back to the level of the Asian crisis, while the rate among over-55s reached 46.4 percent.
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