Seoul:
South Korea's unemployment rate inched down in June from a month earlier, although young people faced an increasingly tough job market, government statistics have showed.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell to 3.6 percent from the previous month's 3.7 percent, Statistics Korea said.
The number of newly created jobs stood at 398,000 from a year ago, compared to an on-year rise of 413,000 in May and a peak of 835,000 in February.
But senior Statistics Korea official Kong Mi-Suk said the job creation level in June was still encouraging, noting that the monthly average of newly created jobs last year was 386,000.
Manufacturing, health and social welfare service, hotels and restaurants, education service and information service were major job creators last month.
But the employment market for young job seekers remained tough, with the jobless rate for those aged 15-29 standing at 9.5 percent in June, up from 8.7 in May and 7.9 percent a year earlier.