jobless rate-August tally

▲ Job seekers participate at a recruitment event held at a university in the southeastern city of Gyeongsan on Sept. 8, 2026. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea added 184,000 jobs in August from a year earlier, government data showed Wednesday, marking the highest growth in five months.

The number of employed people came to 29.15 million in August, compared with 28.96 million a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

It marked three consecutive months of gains and comes despite the manufacturing sector remaining sluggish. Job growth turned positive again in June after declining by 40,000 in May, the first drop in 17 months.

The country's jobless rate came to 2 percent last month, unchanged from a year earlier. The number of unemployed people totaled 588,000 in August, down 4,000 from the same month in 2025.

The employment rate for people aged 15 to 29 came to 44.1 percent, down 1 percentage point from a year earlier.

(END)

[Copyright ⓒ K-VIBE. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction and redistribution are prohibited.]