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More than 1 million unemployed for two consecutive months
Full-time workers who support the labor market
It only increased by 14,000 people
The number of employees fell 420,000 last month, the biggest drop in six months. The unemployment rate reached its highest point in 20 years.
According to the ‘October Employment Trends’ published by the National Statistics Office on the 11th, the number of employees last month was 27088,000, a decrease of 421,000 compared to the same month last year. Although the number of employees has decreased every month since March, when the spread of the new coronavirus infection (Corona 19) began in earnest, the decline slowed to a high of 476,000 in April. There were 392,000 in May, 352,000 in June, 277,000 in July, and 274,000 in August.
However, the decline increased to 392,000 in September and exceeded 400,000 last month, the biggest drop in six months. Before and after Liberation Day in August, the reproliferation of Corona 19 was great, and it is interpreted that the easing of the distance from September to October did not help improve employment conditions.
Job difficulties among young people are becoming particularly serious. The number of employees in their twenties fell by 210,000 last month, the largest decline since January 2009 (225,000).
Largest 6-month decline in employees … ‘worst’ unemployment rate in 20 years
Vice Premier Hong Nam-ki and the Minister of Strategy and Finance said at the 18th meeting of the Emergency Economy Countermeasures Headquarters on 16 last month: “We expect the employment improvement trend to resume in October due to the relaxation of social distancing measures “. As the distancing measures moved from stage 2.5 to the second stage in the metropolitan area on September 14, and from the second stage → the first stage at the national level on 12 last month, domestic demand is expected to grow recover and employment increases.
However, Vice Premier Hong’s expectations were wrong. Last month, the number of employees fell dramatically in six months since April, when the employment crisis caused by the new coronavirus infection (Corona 19) was the most serious. The number of unemployed was 1,028,000, an increase of 164,000 over the same month last year. After September, the number of unemployed was 1 million for the second consecutive month. The increase in unemployed last month was the largest this year. The unemployment rate (3.7%) also rose 0.7 percentage points from the previous year, the highest since 2000 (3.7%) to October. However, the Ministry of Information and Communications explained, “The decrease in the number of workers employed in the 400,000 range last month had some basic effects from the strong employment in October last year.”
Experts are seriously seeing that even regular workers are on the brink of decline. Regular workers are salaried workers with a contract period of more than 1 year and are similar to regular workers without a fixed contract period. The number of regular workers increased by more than 300,000 each month even in April-July, when temporary and daily jobs decreased significantly due to the Corona 19 incident and played a supporting role in the labor market. However, the increase in regular workers dropped to 282,000 in August, then dropped to 96,000 in September and 14,000 last month.
Young-moo Cho, a researcher at the LG Economic Research Institute, analyzed that “the number of regular workers continued to rise due to the effect of regular workers in the public sector, but as the Corona 19 incident dragged on, the ‘optical effect ‘of government policies weakened ”. He said: “It seems that even strong companies in fields like manufacturing are not able to bear the risk of Corona 19 and adjust their employment.”
The number of employees in the manufacturing industry decreased by 50,000 in August, but the decline is increasing to 68,000 in September and 98,000 in the last month. The difficulty of employment in the service industry continues. The number of people employed in the accommodation and catering businesses in October decreased by 227,000 compared to the previous year. The wholesale and retail business and the educational services business also decreased by 188,000 and 103,000 respectively. The public administration, defense and social security administration industries, which have many government-funded jobs, and the health and social welfare services industries, have increased employment by 123,000 and 105,000, respectively.
The number of inactive economically active populations not working and not seeking employment was 16,376,000 last month, an increase of 508,000 from the previous year. Among them, the “freshly rested” population increased from 247,000 to 2,359,000.
Kum Jae-ho, a professor at the Korea University of Technology and Education, predicted that “the current level of employment will hold until at least the first half of next year.”
Reporter Seo Min-jun / Kang Jin-gyu [email protected]
