S. Korea Adds 139,000 New Jobs in October

South Korea added 139,000 jobs in October, marking the fourth consecutive month that monthly employment gains stayed above 100,000. According to data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics released Wednesday, the number of employed people aged 15 and older was 29.18 million, according to KBS World Radio, while The Korea Times reported the figure as 29.17 million.

The country's jobless rate was 2 percent last month, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. The Korea Times reported that the number of unemployed people totaled 602,000 in October, which was 56,000 fewer than in the same month in 2025.

The employment rate for individuals aged 15 to 64 reached 70.4 percent, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier. However, the employment rate for those aged 15 to 29 fell by 1.7 percentage points to 42.9 percent, according to The Korea Times.

Brief written by urgent.news from KBS World Radio, The Korea Times — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.