The monthly number of jobless people in South Korea topped an average of one million in the third quarter.
 
According to data by Statistics Korea on Sunday, the average monthly unemployed stood at one-point-06 million in the July-September period, up 102-thousand from a year earlier.
 
The number marks the largest third quarter figure since it posted one-point-33 million in 1999 during the foreign currency crisis. It is also the first time in 19 years that the figure surpassed one million.
 
The employment rate for the third quarter marked 61-point-one percent, down three tenths of a percentage point from a year earlier. That marks the largest drop since the first quarter in 2010, when it slipped point-five percentage points.
 
The nation's job growth marked 101-thousand on-year during the first nine months of the year, which is the lowest since 2009 when it marked a decrease of 108-thousand.