Jobless rate increases on tighter virus curbs

Work woes: An assembly line at the LG factory in Gumi. South Korea’s sharp jump in its unemployment rate in December masks improvement in the job market. — Bloomberg

SEOUL: South Korean employers last month added the most jobs since 2014, signalling that the labour market was continuing to heal even as the government started to introduce new curbs to control the Omicron virus variant.

The economy added 773,000 jobs in December compared with last year, a tenth straight monthly improvement, though a jump in people seeking work contributed to an increase in the unemployment rate, according to government data yesterday.