South Korea’s unemployment rate edges lower in July year-on-year

Unemployment rate in South Korea edged lower during the month of July, compared to a year earlier period with the unemployment rate for young adults also declining, government reports showed Wednesday.

The unemployment rate in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 3.5 percent last month, compared with 3.6 percent tallied in June, data released by Statistics Korea showed Wednesday.

The number of employed people stood at 26.6 million in July, up 298,000 from a year earlier, with the monthly gain contracting from the previous month's 354,000. The unemployment rate for young people, aged between 15 and 29, reached 9.2 percent last month, also down from June's 10.3 percent.

The statistics agency said the sluggish manufacturing sector weighed heavily on the monthly job creation as the country's exports posted negative growth for 19 months in a row. The manufacturing industry hired 4.46 million people in July, down 65,000, or 1.4 percent, from a year earlier, marking the first on-year decline since June 2012.

Further, the unemployment rate in Ulsan, where the country's biggest shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. is headquartered, soared 1.2 percentage points on-year to 3.9 percent, while South Gyeongsang Province saw its rate gain 1 percentage point to 3.6 percent over the one-year period, data showed.

Meanwhile, the on-going tough restructuring efforts in the shipbuilding and other shaky sectors started to have an impact on the local job market. Also, the regions where major shipyards are located showed clear signs of sharp downturns in the number of employees.