South Korea added 74,000 new jobs in April, marking the lowest growth in 16 months.

Golden Ten Data reported on May 13 that data released by the Korea Statistics Office on Wednesday showed that, after Middle East conflicts pushed up oil prices and weakened consumer confidence, South Korea added only 74,000 new jobs in April, the weakest performance since a year-on-year decrease of 52,000 in December 2024. In February and March, the number of new jobs remained in the 200,000 range. Last month’s unemployment rate was 2.9%, unchanged from the same period last year. The number of unemployed was 853,000, a decrease of 2,000 year-on-year. By industry, employment in health and social welfare services increased by 261,000 year-on-year, arts, sports and leisure-related services increased by 54,000, and real estate increased by 49,000. Employment in scientific and technical services decreased by 115,000, while manufacturing shrank by 55,000. The statistics office noted that since scientific and technical services were classified separately in 2013, this sector recorded its largest drop in employment, mainly due to the base effect from strong employment growth in previous years.