Unemployment rate shows improvement

According to data released by Statistics Korea, the number of temporary workers in South Korea fell by 2.8% year over year to approximately 4.4 million in February 2023.

When compared to the previous month, the number of temporary workers rose by 5.2% in February 2023. The temporary employment data is not seasonally adjusted.

Further labour market data showed that the unemployment rate marked 3.1% in February, down 0.3% year-on-year and down 0.5% over the previous month.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate stood at 2.6%, down from 2.8% the year prior and from 2.9% the month prior.

The number of unemployed persons totalled 890,000 people in February, which decreased 64,000 persons or 6.7% year-on-year.

At the same time, the number of employed persons totalled 27.71 million persons in February, which went up 312,000 persons or 1.1% year-on-year.

By industry, the business, personal, public service & others industry saw the biggest year-on-year gain in employment (2.7%) while agriculture, forestry & fishing saw a decrease of 3.5% over the year.

The economically active population marked 28.6 million persons in February, which grew 248,000 persons or 0.9% year-on-year.

The labour force participation rate stood at 63.1% in February, up 0.4% year-on-year.