South Korea added 111,000 wage employee jobs in the second quarter, marking the second-slowest increase since early 2024 as construction and manufacturing continued to shed positions, government data showed Tuesday. The total number of wage jobs stood at 20.95 million as of May, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics, with job creation sharply decelerating from quarterly gains of 246,000 last summer and 153,000 in late 2024. The first quarter this year added just 15,000 positions.

Construction lost 141,000 jobs from a year earlier, extending its decline to a seventh consecutive quarter, while manufacturing fell by 13,000. Job