South Korea’s record-low joblessness masks hit

Cutting back: The assembly line at the LG factory in Gumi. Manufacturing lost 76,000 jobs in South Korea in July, indicating that the private sector has taken a beating from the pandemic. ― Bloomberg

SEOUL: The surprise drop in South Korea’s unemployment rate to a record in August belies broader weakness in the job market as the nation’s worst virus outbreak discouraged people from looking for work and companies from hiring.

The number of people either employed or searching for jobs fell to the lowest level since March, the statistics office said yesterday. The decline in labour-force participation helped push the jobless rate down to 2.8% from 3.3% in July, defying economists’ expectation of an increase to 3.5%.