A Statistics Korea senior official gives a press briefing at the Sejong Government Complex, Thursday. Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

More than 91,000 people under 40 lost jobs in the October-December period last year, whereas people in their 50s and older added nearly 550,000 jobs, mostly through the government's job creation initiative put in place to weather the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Thursday.

But the added jobs are short-term and low-quality, not too different from ones created long before the pandemic. People in their 30s lost jobs over the last five quarters, and those in their 20s for the last four quarters. Manufacturing continued to shed jobs for five consecutive quarters, indicative of the industry-wide slowdown compounded further by the pandemic.

Statistics Korea data released Thursday also showed the number of salaried workers stood at 19.58 million, up 503,000, or 2.6 percent, from a year earlier.

People in their 60s and older added 392,000 jobs, up 15.7 percent from the year before. This is the biggest increase since 2018 when the government began compiling related data.

Jobs added by people in their 50s were 156,000, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, whereas 46,000 jobs were added by those in their 40s, a 1 percent year-on-year increase.

The number of workers in their 30s dropped 68,000, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier, the fifth consecutive quarter of declines. Those in their 20s lost 23,000 jobs, down 0.7 percent from the year before, the fourth consecutive quarter of declines.

By industry, manufacturing lost 66,000 jobs due to a decrease in mechanical equipment, metal processing and other transportation equipment. The sectors lost 9,000 8,000 and 8,000 jobs, respectively.

Manufacturing, the country's core producer which is equivalent to 20 percent of the country's jobs, has been on the decline since the October-December quarter of 2019.

The hospitality industry lost 51,000 jobs, followed by 5,000 lost in arts, sports and leisure industries. Transport and storage lost 3,000 jobs.

However, public administration added 245,000 jobs, the highest jump since 2018. Health and social welfare added 158,000 jobs and science and technology industries added 69,000 jobs. Education added 37,000 jobs.

By gender, the number of jobs added by men increased 157,000 and those added by women were 346,000. Men accounted for 57.6 percent of the workforce and women 42.4 percent.

"The number of people in their 20s decreased significantly in manufacturing, hospitality and retail. A significant rise in the number of public administration jobs was added by older people after municipal governments rushed to follow up a variety of job initiatives promoted by the central government," Statistics Korea official Kim Jin said during the briefing.

Source: The Korea Times 2021-05-27 15:11