As the employment crisis following the spread of Corona19 became a reality, the number of employees in March fell to the maximum in 10 years and 10 months.

Looking at the employment trend of the National Statistical Office in March, the number of employed in the previous month decreased by 195,000 compared to a year ago.

The number of employed people, which has continued to increase with the increase in population, decreased for the first time in 10 years since January 2010, and the decline has also been the largest since the decrease of 240,000 in May 2009 during the global financial crisis.

The employment rate of people aged 15 and over, which shows the employment status of the population, was 59.5%, down 0.9% p from a year ago, the lowest in 7 years since 58.7% in 2013 in the same month.

The 'temporary leave', which is identified as a job worker but is actually at work, recorded 1.67,000, an increase of 1.26 million people, more than three times the previous year.

This increase was the largest since the statistics were prepared in 1983.

As the job search activities themselves decreased, the number of unemployed people who were caught by statistics only when they were looking for jobs decreased by 17,000 compared to a year ago, and the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1% p to 4.2% compared to the previous year.

Instead, as the 'rest' population grew by 366,000, the non-economically active population also increased by 516,000 compared to the same month of the previous year, the largest since May 2009.

(Photo = Yonhap News)