SEOUL: South Korea’s population grew for a third straight year as an uptick in the number of foreign residents offset a continued decline in Korean nationals, underscoring the country’s growing reliance on overseas workers to ease the impact of rapid ageing and a shrinking workforce.
The nation’s population stood at 51.8 million in 2025, up 12,000 from a year earlier, the Ministry of Data and Statistics said Tuesday (July 28). The number of Korean nationals fell for a fifth consecutive year to 49.7 million, while foreign residents rose to 2.1 million, accounting for a record 4.1% of the total.
South Korea joined Japan and Italy and a handful of others by officially entering the ranks of super-aged societies, with people aged 65 or older accounting for 20.7% of the population. The share of those aged 15 to 64 dropped below 70% for the first time. The working-age population declined by 393,000 from a year earlier, the data ministry said.
The latest data underscore an increasingly important role for foreign residents in South Korea’s labour force. Nearly 89.3% of foreign residents were working age, compared with 68.4% of South Korean nationals. The foreign population has expanded every year since 2022, while the number of Korean nationals has fallen annually since 2021.
The data also show the Seoul metropolitan area continued to attract residents, accounting for 50.9% of the nation’s population, while the number of elderly people per 100 working-age residents rose to 29.9, reflecting demographic pressure on the labor force and public finances. - Bloomberg
