South Korea’s on-year employment grew at a slower pace in 2023, but the employment rate reached a record high, data showed Wednesday.

The number of employed people rose 327,000 in 2023 from a year earlier, or 1.2 percent, to come to 28.41 million, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

The number of jobs grew at a faster pace over the past two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic and added 816,000, or the largest number since 2000.

In 2023, the employment rate of people aged 15-64 rose 0.7 percentage point on-year to 69.2 percent, the highest figure since the statistics agency began compiling related data in 1989.

In December alone, the country added 285,000 jobs on-year, picking up the pace from the previous month’s 277,000 job additions.

Hiring has logged on-year growth since March 2021, the data showed.

Source: Yonhap News Agency