S. Korea Emplyment Crisis

Another brutal job report, showing the damage that the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking on South Korea’s labor market. The country has seen 6 straight months of declining on-year job figures. For six months in a row, the monthly job figures in South Korea have been worse than they were the previous year. This is the first time there have been six months of consecutive worsening on-year job figures since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009. According to data from Statistics Korea on Wednesday, roughly 27 million people were in employment in August, but that figure is down 274-thousand from the same period last year. Last month’s figures do not reflect the impact of strengthened social distancing measures in the capital and surrounding area.