The government will create 50,000 new internship positions annually for young adults as part of its package of measures to boost youth employment, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Friday.

"The government will increase the number of beneficiaries (of the youth internship program) from the current 35,000 to 50,000 starting this year," Hwang said during his visit to a local factory in Gwangju, a small city on the outskirts of Seoul.

The program gives unemployed youths between 15 and 34 years of age internship opportunities at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the period of three to six months. The government provides wage subsidies to the SMEs to reduce their burden of employing new workers and encourage the firms to convert to full-time positions.

"The youth internship program is a useful system that helps young adults find jobs and gives firms an opportunity to hire suitable workers," Hwang said.

Hwang said the government will expand the internship opportunities from SMEs to mid-sized firms with good growth potential as well to give more choices to young job-seekers.

The measure is part of the government-led job creation effort for the young generation.

Creating jobs is one of the main goals of the Park Geun-hye administration's labor reform drive as she seeks to increase labor flexibility in the face of a protracted economic slowdown.

The unemployment rate for people between the ages of 15 and 29 reached a record 9.2 percent in 2015, up from 9 percent tallied a year earlier and the highest level since 1999. (Yonhap)