South Korea's jobless rate hits over 7-year high in Feb

South Korea's jobless rate rose to an over seven-year high in February amid an increased youth unemployment rate, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported quoting government data showed on Wednesday.

The unemployment rate in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at five per cent last month, edging up 0.1 percentage point from the same month last year, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.

From a month earlier, the rate also jumped 1.2 percentage points from 3.8 per cent.

The number of employed people stood at 25.78 million in February, up 371,000 from a year earlier, the largest on-year gain in six months.

The unemployment rate for young people, aged between 15 and 29, reached 12.3 percent last month, down slightly from a record 12.5 percent tallied a year earlier but up sharply from January's 8.6 per cent.

--BERNAMA