ⓒYONHAP News

South Korea posted its biggest job growth in nearly 22 years last month.

According to Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the number of employed people stood at 26-point-95 million in January, up one-point-135 million from a year earlier. This marks the largest on-year increase in the monthly job tally since March of 2000, when one-point-21 million jobs were added as the nation recovered from the preceding Asian financial crisis.

Gong Mi-suk, a senior official at the statistics agency, attributed the significant growth partly to the base effect from January of last year, which shed 982-thousand jobs from a year earlier in the wake of tightened social distancing rules amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, robust exports, as well as changes to industrial structures such as virtualization and digitalization also helped create jobs, she said.

The employment rate for those aged 15 and older rose two-point-two percentage points on-year to 59-point-six percent in January.

The jobless rate dropped by one-point-six percentage points on-year to four-point-one percent, with the total unemployment figure declining by 427-thousand to one-point-14 million.