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| Suh Woon-joo, a senior official at Statistics Korea, gives a press briefing on April's job market at Government Complex Sejong, Wednesday. Yonhap |
By Yi Whan-woo
Sluggish exports are dealing a blow to manufacturing jobs, their number falling by 97,000 in April from a year earlier, marking the lowest level in 28 months, according to data released by Statistics Korea, Wednesday.
The data also showed young job seekers are facing fewer opportunities. Newly hired people aged between 15 and 29 fell 137,000 year-on-year in April, according to the data.
Such a decrease marks a 26-month-low. It is in stark contrast to the overall number of new jobs that increased by 354,000 year-on-year during the cited period.
"The outbound shipment of semiconductors, electronic devices and other key export items keeps declining," said Suh Woon-joo, a senior official at Statistics Korea, referring to a seven-month-long losing streak in exports.
The export slump is largely attributable to weakening global demand for semiconductors, which accounted for nearly one-fifth of the country's overall outbound shipments in 2022.
In April, exports as a whole sank 14.2 percent year-on-year to $49.6 billion as sales of chips retreated 41 percent year-on-year.
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"Under the circumstances, chances are high that the jobs in the manufacturing segment will continue to falter," Suh said.
The decrease in the number of manufacturing jobs in April was the sharpest since an 110,000 drop tallied in December 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak.
The number of newly created jobs for those aged between 15 and 29 slid for the sixth consecutive month in April, the pace of decrease being the steepest since February 2021 when the job market was troubled by the pandemic.
By age group, the number of jobs diminished by 116,000 for those in their 20s and by 22,000 for those in their 40s.
A total of 15,000 jobs were added for those in their 30s and another 55,000 jobs for those in their 50s.
The job additions were mostly led by those aged 60 and above, with the number of new jobs inching up to 442,000 for the respective age group.
Excluding seniors, however, the number of new jobs dropped by 88,000.
In separate data released on Tuesday, the Bank of Korea (BOK) forecast the number of workers will shrink by 240,000 in the manufacturing sector between 2022 and 2032 unless the government takes corresponding action to boost employment amid the population's decline.
The BOK suggests Korea will need to expand the hiring of foreign laborers to tackle labor shortages at plants and other manufacturing sites.
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