South Korean manufacturing payrolls grew at the fastest clip in nearly a decade in the second quarter as exports and other major indicators flashed signs of improvement, government data showed Sunday.
According to Statistics Korea, the number of workers hired by the country's manufacturing sector totaled 4.01 million in the April-June period, up 4.5 percent, or 172,000 employees, from the same period a year earlier.
The growth rate was the highest since the country's manufacturing payrolls expanded 5.8 percent on-year in the third quarter of 2000, the agency said.
"Job openings offered by the manufacturing industry are on the increase as exports, corporate capital spending and other macroeconomic indicators improve amid rising employment by the private sector," an agency official said.
He added that the second-quarter figure hovers above levels seen before the start of the global economic crisis in 2008.
South Korea's manufacturing payrolls totaled 3.99 million in the second quarter of 2008, just before the global economic downturn erupted. The number dropped to 3.93 million in the third quarter of that year at the onset of the global crisis.
Bolstered by strong exports, the South Korean economy has been recovering fast this year. The country's gross domestic product, the value of goods and services produced in the country, surged 8.2 percent on-year in the second quarter. From three months earlier, it expanded a robust 2.1 percent.
In late June, the government upgraded its economic growth forecast for this year to 5.8 percent from an earlier estimate of 5 percent, citing resilient exports and a recovery in domestic demand.
