The economically active foreign population in South Korea has topped one million for the first time.
According to a Statistics Korea employment report released on Thursday, the number of foreigners aged over 15 residing in the nation amounted to one-point-42 million as of May. That’s up three-point-seven percent compared to the same period last year.
Of that population, a little over one million were economically active, or up one-point-nine percent from a year ago.
The employment rate among foreigners stood at 67-point-six percent. That’s down seven-tenths of a percentage point from a year ago but up six-point-six percentage points than the rate of the nation’s economically active population.
By gender, the employment rate among men was more than 30 percentage points higher than that of women at 81 percent.
The survey also found that the number of foreigners working in the manufacturing sector fell sharply apparently amid a prolonged economic slump.
The unemployment rate of foreigners, meanwhile, stood at four-point-two percent, or slightly higher than the nation’s overall jobless rate of three-point-seven percent.