Youth Unemployment Soars to 15-Year High

Unemployment among young people between 15 and 29 soared to a 15-year high last month.

According to the latest figures announced by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, youth unemployment stood at 10.7 percent in March, up 0.8 percentage points compared to the same period last year.

A Statistics Korea spokesman said, "In March, many regional governments accepted applications for civil servant positions, which led to an increase in the number of young jobseekers."

The government classifies as unemployed only people who looked for jobs within the last four weeks but were unsuccessful.

An official at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said, "The number of available jobs in the financial sector or big conglomerates, which are favored by young jobseekers, decreased, which also contributed to a rise in youth unemployment."

Overall unemployment last month stood at four percent, up slightly from 3.9 percent a year ago. The ratio of employed people between 15 and 64 stood at 64.9 percent in March, up 0.4 percentage point on-year. This means that more people sought to become economically active.

A total of 25.5 million people were employed as of March, up 338,000 on-year but the smallest increase since May 2013. In fact, the number of employed people has been dropping continuously after growing by 835,000 in February of last year.

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