The largest decrease in 22 years of employed people last year

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As a result of the COVID-19 employment shock, the number of employed last year has decreased sharply in 22 years since 1998, at the time of the financial crisis. The unemployed and temporary leavers also recorded record highs. The government has come up with a plan to put out urgent fires by providing public jobs early.

According to the annual employment trend for December 2020 and the annual employment trend released by the National Statistical Office on the 13th, the number of employed people last year was 26.94,000, down 218,000 from a year ago. This is the largest decline in 22 years since 1998, when the aftermath of the financial crisis was maximized (1276,000 people decreased).

This is the fifth time in the year when the number of employed has declined from the previous year, following the global oil crisis in 1984, at the time of the foreign exchange crisis in 1998, credit card insolvency in 2003, and the global financial crisis in 2009. .

Last year, the number of employed by age group increased by 375,000 people over the age of 60, and decreased in all other age groups. The government’s job programs for the elderly seem to have had an impact.

The situation for unemployed and temporary leavers was also bad. Last year, the number of unemployed was 1.18,000, an increase of 45,000 from a year ago. The 1.1 million number is the largest number since 2000, when statistics that can be compared by year were prepared. The number of temporary leave has increased by 430,000 to 837,000. This is the largest increase since the relevant statistics were prepared in 1980.

Due to worsening employment, the unemployment rate recorded 4.0% last year, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from a year ago. The employment rate fell 0.8 percentage points to 60.1%. The employment rate for those aged 15 to 64, which is the comparison standard of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), fell 0.9 percentage points over the same period to 65.9%.

The number of employed people in December last year, showing the aftermath of the third spread of Corona 19, decreased by 628,000 from a year ago. Starting with a decrease of 195,000 in March last year, the decline continued from the 200,000 to 400,000 range, but this time the increase was steep to 600,000.

The government tries to recover the worst employment report card through direct job programs. Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister of Economy and Ministry of Strategy and Finance, said at a meeting of the Central Central Countermeasure Headquarters for Emergency Economy, “80% (83 million) of 1,040,000 direct jobs and 44% (28,000) of social service jobs were given 1 “We will provide it in the quarter,” he said, “in the first half of the year, 45% of the number of people hired by public institutions will be provided.” It is also planning to extend the period of designation for special employment support sectors ending in March.

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