South Korea Unemployment Rate
The share of people aged 15 and over who want a job and are actively looking, but can't find one.
2.6%
Matches the latest releaseNot refreshed recently, awaiting the next release
Explore the full South Korea economy17 live indicators on one dashboard, from growth and prices to jobs, trade and public finances. Updated automatically from official sources.Unemployment Rate
Jan 1990 to Sep 2026
Source: OECD DF_IALFS_UNE_M · unemployment rate, ages 15 and over, seasonally adjusted, monthly.
South Korea Unemployment Rate in context
Worked out from the published series shown above.
In South Korea, the unemployment rate fell by 0.1pp over the year to Sep 2026, from 2.7% in Sep 2025.
It is the lowest reading since May 2023.
Over the past five years it has ranged from 2.5% in May 2023 to 3.3% in Oct 2021.
Its average since Jan 1990 is 3.4%, and the latest reading is below that.
South Korea is 59th of 62 countries in our Unemployment Rate by Country ranking.
How this series is defined
Everything you need to check the figure against the source.
- Source
- OECD
- Series
- DF_IALFS_UNE_M
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Unit
- %
- Seasonal adjustment
- Seasonally adjusted
- Latest observation
- Sep 2026
- Revision status
- Latest published estimate, subject to revision
Data refreshed 2026-10-28. Figures are the latest published observations and can be revised.
More South Korea indicators
Latest readings. Open any one for its full history.
Rankings
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