South Korea’s jobless rate surged to its highest in more than two decades, raising concern that an export-driven recovery could be masking a harsher scarring of the economy.
The unemployment rate jumped to 5.4 percent last month from a revised 4.5 percent in December last year, hitting its highest level since after the Asian financial crisis.
The result outstripped all forecasts as the economy shed almost 1 million jobs from a year earlier for the worst losses since 1998.
The sharp deterioration in the labor market contrasts with the view that the South Korean economy has been one of the best performers in the developed world last year and suggests that the South Korean government might need to take more action to support jobs.
“The huge hit to jobs is going to weigh on the pace of economic recovery,” said Sung Tae-yoon, an economics professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “People looking for jobs will also decrease as the economy worsens, which may technically bring down the jobless rate, but economic difficulties will continue.”
Last month, the sector combining retailers, wholesalers, restaurants and hotels was hit hardest with 585,000 job losses from a year earlier.
More than 340,000 positions were shed in a sector that includes public service, as the government’s job-creation measures expired. Manufacturing lost 46,000 jobs.
The government takes the situation “seriously” and would use all available options to deal with it, South Korean Minister of Finance Hong Nam-ki said in a statement, blaming the job losses partly on expired fiscal support for jobs creation at the turn of the year, and a high year-earlier base.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is also calling for incentives for companies that would share some of their profits during the pandemic with ones that were hit harder, a move that could indirectly support employment.
Some South Korean lawmakers are putting pressure on the Bank of Korea to adopt a jobs mandate as part of its goals.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last