As COVID-19 is existing longer and longer, the unemployment rate of the whole world is getting higher. Especially, the number of unemployed people in South Korea is increasing geometrically. Thus, many experts and economists continue to discuss this situation.

▲ workers who counted as `unemployed

In February 2021, the South Korean official statistic organization has announced that there are 1,570,000 unemployed people in South Korea, which is 36.2 percent higher than the last year. The unemployment rate is over 5.7 percent in South Korea, which is the highest unemployment rate in South Korea of all time since the South Korean government has started to rate the unemployment rate officially in June 1999.

▲ unemployment rate in S.Korea

Compared to the last year, 2020, the number of unemployed people over the sixties has increased to58.1 percent, which is the highest increase among those in the past. Over 44 percent of the number of unemployed people has increased for the thirties, 17.3 percent for twenties, 38.7 percent for forties, and 23.4 percent for fifties. Also, the number of female unemployed people has increased more than the number of male unemployed people. The number of female unemployed people is about 789,000, which is 48.4 percent higher compared to that of last year, while the number of male unemployed people has increased 25.9 percent higher than that of last year. In fact, the unemployment rate for the officials is not higher than the unemployment rate of regular companies.

▲ Unemployment rate being a serious problem

Many experts and economists say that because of the COVID-19 virus, all of the job programs for the sixties and some for the fifties were canceled, which produced more unemployed people compared to the last year. The official statistic organization in South Korea explained that unemployed people over the sixties will get the most damage from this unemployed phenomenon. Since we do not know when the COVID-19 pandemic situation will end, this unemployment rate problem over the world is becoming a more serious problem in our society.

April 10th, 2021

by Jeon Seung Hyun