The number of senior citizens in South Korea grew on-year in 2014, with more older people seeking employment to help support their families, a government report said Tuesday.

The number of senior citizens aged 55-79 totaled 11.38 million this year, up 4.2 percent, or 461,000, from a year earlier, according to the report by Statistics Korea.

Of the total, 55.1 percent of the senior population was engaged in economic activities, up 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier, the report showed.

Over the past year, 15.3 percent of those in the cited age group attempted to find jobs, compared with 15 percent tallied a year earlier. About 62 percent of the senior citizens said that they had worked at some point during the past year.

The report also showed about 7.05 million, or 62 percent of the age group, said that they want to be employed in the near future, which is 2.1 percentage points higher than the previous year.

The main reason behind their seeking jobs was to support their families, with 54 percent of those surveyed saying so, the report said. (Yonhap)