The number of employment insurance subscribers has maintained a high growth trend in the high 200,000s for six consecutive months, driven by an increase in service sector workers.

Conversely, the number of employment insurance subscribers in the manufacturing sector has declined for 13 consecutive months.

The growth in subscribers in the wholesale and retail sector has slowed due to the impact of the Homeplus situation.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced these findings today (July 13) in its Labor Market Trends based on Employment Administration Statistics for June.

As of last month, the number of permanent employment insurance subscribers stood at 15.855 million, an increase of 264,000 (1.7%) compared to June of last year.

The year-on-year growth has remained in the high 200,000s for six consecutive months.

The service sector led the overall rise, with 279,000 additional subscribers.

Within the service sector, the health and welfare industry saw an increase of 112,000 subscribers.

The accommodation and food service sector also saw an increase of 54,000, marking the fifth consecutive month of growth in the 50,000s.

However, within the service sector, the wholesale and retail industry saw its growth narrow to 2,300, down from 3,000 in May.

Cheon Gyeong-gi, Director of the Future Employment Analysis Division at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, estimated, "The number of insured employees at Homeplus has been gradually decreasing since last year, and it continued to fall by several hundred each month from January to June this year," adding, "At the beginning of last year, there were about 20,000 Homeplus employees subscribed to employment insurance, but currently, that number is around 12,000."

On the other hand, manufacturing subscribers decreased by 9,000, marking 13 consecutive months of decline.

The scale of the decline has also widened, from 2,200 in February, 3,900 in March, 6,600 in April, and 8,400 in May, to 9,000 in June.

The construction sector saw a decline of 8,100, marking 35 consecutive months of decrease.

The impact of demographic changes was also clearly evident.

The number of employment insurance subscribers aged 29 and under decreased by 63,000 compared to June of last year, while the number of subscribers aged 60 and older increased by 206,000.

While the number of subscribers aged 29 and under has been falling for 46 months since September 2022, the number of subscribers aged 60 and older has continued to grow by more than 140,000 per month during the same period.

Director Cheon stated, "Considering the impact of population decline, it is expected that a recovery in the youth employment situation will be difficult in the short term," but added, "The scale of the decline for those aged 29 and under had widened to 113,000 in September 2024, but it has now eased to a decrease of 60,000, which we view as returning to the level of population decline."

Male subscribers reached 8.66 million, an increase of 82,000 from a year ago, while female subscribers reached 7.194 million, an increase of 181,000.

The number of new applicants for job-seeking benefits last month was 90,000, an increase of 4,000 (4.5%) compared to June of last year.

The number of people who actually received job-seeking benefits was 635,000, a decrease of 20,000 (3.0%).

The total amount paid out was 1.0747 trillion won.

The number of job openings posted through Goyong24 (Employment 24) was 183,000, while the number of job seekers was 384,000.

The job opening ratio, which indicates the number of jobs per job seeker, was 0.48, an improvement from 0.39 in June of last year.

Among total employment insurance subscribers, the number of foreign nationals mandatorily insured under the Employment Permit System (E9/H2 visas) was 272,000, an increase of 14,000 from a year ago.