3월 취업자 19만5천명↓…2009년 5월 이래 최대 감소

Our top story this lunchtime.
A clearer picture is emerging of the economic fallout facing South Korea as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
South Korea's latest job report is out, and it shows the outbreak has had a devastating effect on the local employment market.
Even prior to the outbreak, the employment prospects were looking grim, but the pandemic has twisted the knife on an already painful situation.
Kim Jae-hee starts us off.
South Korea saw the biggest decline in the number of jobs last month in almost eleven years.
March's fall was largely attributed to the global coronavirus outbreak,... which has already caused immense damage to the world economy.
According to Statistics Korea on Friday, the number of employed people in South Korea in March fell to some 26-point-six million.
That's down around 195-thousand compared to the same month last year,... marking the largest on-year fall since May 2009.
The employment rate for those aged between 15 to 64, was at 65-point-four percent, down point-eight percentage points compared to last year.
The employment rate for those aged between 15 and 29 also fell.
It was 41 percent,... down one-point-nine percentage points.
But the elderly 65 and older saw an increase of point-nine percentage points to 32-point-8 percent.
The virus also caused a massive rise in the number of people taking time off work.
A total of some one-point-six million people took a temporary leave of absence in March, up more than one-point-two million from a year earlier.
This is the largest on-year increase since statistics began in 1983.
Despite the fall in the number of jobs,... the unemployment rate actually decreased point-1 percentage point on-year in March, to 4-point-2 percent.
Following the release of the Statistics Korea report South Korea's finance chief Hong Nam-ki said on Friday morning that the government is working on a package of measures to reinvigorate the nation's job market at this difficult time.
Kim Jae-hee, Arirang News.