Seoul, Dec 14 South Korea added jobs for the 21st straight month in November, but the growth continued to slow for the sixth month in a row amid the central bank's aggressive monetary tightening, government data showed on Wednesday.
The number of employed people stood at 28.4 million last month, up some 626,000 from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea. It marked the highest growth for any November since the agency adopted the current research methods in 1999.
The November figure, however, marked a slight drop from an on-year rise of 677,000 tallied the previous month, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Monthly job creation has been losing steam since peaking at 935,000 in May.
South Korea's jobless rate fell 0.3 percentage point on-year to 2.3 per cent in November, the lowest since 1999, the data showed,
The growth was primarily led by those aged 60 and older, which accounted for 479,000, or 76.5 per cent of the on-year gain. People in their 50s and 30s took up 92,000 and 66,000 of the new jobs, respectively, the data showed.
The number of new jobs taken by those in their 20s and 40s, however, slipped 4,000 and 6,000, respectively, over the period.
The unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 29 moved up 0.2 percentage point on-year to 5.7 per cent.
Last month, new jobs were mainly created in the accommodation, restaurant, health care and manufacturing industries, the data showed.
In contrast, those in the retail, insurance and transportation sectors lost ground.
The Finance Ministry said South Korea is expected to maintain its employment rate at the November level throughout 2023, although the country may have no further room for additional growth.
The employment rate among those aged 15 and above came to 62.7 per cent last month, up 1.5 percentage points from a year earlier, an all-time high level for any November.
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