South Korea's jobless rate rose slightly in December due to seasonal factors, government data showed Wednesday.
The unemployment rate stood at 3.3 percent last month, up 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.
From a month earlier, it also climbed 0.1 percent.
The number of employed people reached 26.42 million last December, up 253,000 from a year earlier, unchanged from the previous month's rise.
Among those surveyed, 95.9 percent said that job prep this year had been either “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult”. (Yonhap)
The unemployment rate for young people -- those aged between 15 and 29 -- was 9.9 percent for all of 2017, marking the worst figure since the government started compiling the annual data.
The employment rate fell 1 percentage point to 60.2 percent last month from a year earlier, with the corresponding figure for young people declining 0.3 percentage point to 42 percent.
The manufacturing sector, the backbone industry that shoulders a fifth of employment in Asia's fourth-largest economy, had 4.52 million workers on its payroll last month, up 88,000 from a year earlier.
More than 2 million workers were employed by local builders last month, up 80,000 from a year earlier, while retailers and wholesalers eliminated 2,000 jobs in December. (Yonhap)
