Day laborers are lined up for work in a street in Seoul, Dec. 29. Yonhap

Lackluster domestic demand is adversely affecting the labor market, where manufacturing, construction and other labor-intensive sectors offered fewer job opportunities and new jobs were created at a slower pace last year.

Statistics Korea data released Wednesday showed the number of employed people increased by 159,000, or 0.6 percent, to 28.58 million in 2024 from the previous year.

Last year's pace of year-on-year growth in employment slowed down from 327,000 in 2023 after the figure reached 816,000 in 2022.

“Such pace of growth was reduced by more than half for the two consecutive years,” Statistics Korea said, noting that the 2024 tally accordingly remained below the government's projection for 170,000 new jobs.

Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice, a civic activist group, noted that employers are not hiring new workers as consumers spend less due to the high cost of living, high interest rate and other economic burdens.

“You don't need to increase the number of employees when there is less demand for products and services, which causes profits to fall,” the coalition said.

The coalition added that retail sales fell 2.1 percent in the first 11 months of 2024 from a year earlier. The year-on-year decrease was the steepest in 24 years.

Under the circumstances, the manufacturing and mining industries also lost 6,000 jobs in 2024.

Over the same period, the construction industry shed 49,000 jobs, marking the sharpest decline since the data was first compiled in 2013.

The downturn in construction business also caused jobs at business facilities management and rental services to fall by 52,000, which was the first decline since 2019.

Jobs for day laborers, many of them in the construction business, dropped by 122,000, falling to the lowest level since 2012.

The wholesale and retail sector lost 61,000 jobs, extending its losing streak for the seventh year.

The coalition said fewer job opportunities can exacerbate consumer spending, leading to higher unemployment.

The country's unemployment rate in 2024 inched up 0.1 percentage point year-on-year to 2.8 percent.

Moreover, the number of people aged between 15 and 64 and economically inactive, meaning neither searching for nor preparing to get a job, rose by 117,000.

A total of 371,000 economically inactive people said they gave up searching for jobs, which was 9,000 higher than a year earlier.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, who is also acting president, showed a pessimistic view of this year's job market in the aftermath of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment in December.

The country marked a net loss of 52,000 jobs in December 2024, posting its first year-on-year decline in nearly four years.

The December figure was also a sharp turnaround from the 120,000 job additions in the previous month.