Jobseekers on July 11 look at bulletin boards at a job fair in Hanam, Gyeonggi-do Province. (Yonhap News)

By Koh Hyunjeong

A combined 183,000 jobs were added last month from June last year.

Statistics Korea on July 16 said this in releasing data on employment trends for the month. The number of employed people aged 15 or older last month reached 29,091,000, or 183,000 more than in June last year.

The figure marked its sixth consecutive month of growth since January. It had risen for 45 straight months through November last year, but the streak was broken due a drop of 52,000 that December.

The number rose 135,000 in January, 136,000 in February, 193,000 in March, 194,000 in April and 245,000 in May.

By age group, jobs for people in their 60s rose by 348,000, while those in their 30s grew by 116,000. But the number of those employed in their 20s fell 152,000, that for 50-somethings 53,000 and that for 40-somethings 55,000.

Sectors seeing job growth included health and social welfare (216,000), professional, scientific and technical services (102,000), and educational services (72,000). But agriculture, forestry and fisheries (141,000), construction (97,0000) and manufacturing (83,000) were among industries that suffered declines.

The employment rate for people ages 15-64 inched up 0.4 percentage points to 70.3%, while that for those in the 15-29 bracket dipped a point to 45.6%. The unemployed population of 825,000 was down 32,000 from last year, with the jobless rate being 2.8%.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced plans to create quality jobs through stimulation of domestic consumption and development of cutting-edge sectors, while also identifying key issues for stable employment of vulnerable groups like youth.

hjkoh@korea.kr