Unemployment among young South Koreans with no prior job experiences reached an over 12-year high last month, government data showed Tuesday, a sign of growing economic uncertainty that is affecting the labor market.
  

There were some 95,000 people in their 20s and 30s who never held a job before and were not employed in April, Statistics Korea said. Of the total, 89,000 were people in their 20s.
  

This is the highest number since 97,000 were tallied in January 2003. The number is equal to 15.1 percent of all unemployed people in the cited month.
  

The increase is noteworthy because in the past, unemployment usually peaked in February when people graduated from school and started to fall in the following months.
  

This year, however, unemployment numbers reached 79,000 in February, then fell to 71,000 in March before rising again.
  

The statistical office also said there was an increase in the number of people in their 20s who did not seek to find work at all.
  

Some 250,000 people in their 20s did not try to find a job last month, up 16.3 percent from the year before.
  

The overall drop in employment numbers and a tendency of more people opting not to find work come as companies are cutting back on hiring in the face of economic and labor market uncertainties.
  

South Korea's mandatory retirement age will be raised to 60 starting in 2016, making it hard for companies to hire new workers.
  

According to the Korea Employers Federation, 377 companies with more than 100 employees will scale back hiring by 3.6 percent this year compared with 2014
  

Related to the latest development, the Korea Employment Information Service said the drop in hiring is also being influenced by fewer people quitting jobs in the face of economic uncertainty that is limiting the number of vacancies available.
  

It said another reason why youth unemployment numbers rose is because companies do not want to spend money on training new workers and prefer people with job experience. (Yonhap)