Seoul, Nov 9 South Korea added jobs for the 20th straight month in October, but the growth continued to slow for the fifth month in a row as the country braces for a possible recession amid high inflation and slowed growth, new data revealed Wednesday.
The number of employed people stood at 28.41 million last month, up 677,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.
It was the largest on-year growth for any October since 1999.
The October figure marked a slight drop from the on-year rise of 707,000 tallied in the previous month, Yonhap News Agency reported.
South Korea's jobless rate fell 0.4 percentage point on-year to 2.4 per cent in October, the data showed.
The new jobs were mainly created in the manufacturing, accommodation, restaurant and health care industries, apparently on the back of eased social distancing rules.
In contrast, the number of people who got new jobs in the retail and financial sectors fell over the period.
The growth was mainly led by those aged 60 and above, which accounted for a whopping 460,000 of the on-year gain. People in their 50s and 30s took up 147,000 and 61,000, respectively, the data showed.
The new job additions for those in their 20s only came to 28,000.
The latest data came as the South Korean economy faces concerns over a recession amid inflation and the US' aggressive monetary tightening.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic performance, grew 0.3 per cent on-quarter in the July-September period, slowing from a 0.7 per cent gain three months earlier, the central bank data showed last month.
To cope with the inflation, the Bank of Korea raised the benchmark seven-day repo rate from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent last month. It is the first time in about 10 years that the rate has risen to the 3 per cent range.
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