South Korea’s working population aged 60 and older grew larger than that of people in their 20s for the first time since 1963, when Statistics Korea began to compile the data.
The number of workers aged 60 and older stood at 3.64 million people in the second quarter, up 5.6 percent from the same period last year. The number of workers in their 20s, meanwhile, inched up 0.5 percent to 36.1 million, the data showed.
The figure indicates a population shift in age groups and poor market conditions for young job seekers, the agency officials said.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate of people in their 20s rose to 9.5 percent in the second quarter of this year from 7.7 percent in the same period last year.