South Korea’s unemployment rate surged to an eleven-year high in September amid a chronic export slump and the ongoing structural reform campaign for the shipbuilding and shipping industries. 

According to a report released on Wednesday by Statistics Korea, the number of employees in the country grew by 267-thousand from September last year to 26-million-531-thousand last month.

However, the unemployment rate rose by zero-point-four percentage points to three-point-six percent. It is the highest level measured in the month of September since posting three-point-six percent in 2005.

The number of people without jobs jumped by around 120-thousand, particularly among those in their 20s and 50s.

The youth unemployment rate, or the portion of the jobless to the population between the ages of 15 and 29, also marked a record high level for September at nine-point-four percent, up by one-point-five percentage points from the same month a year earlier.

The spike in the unemployment rate was attributed in many parts to the sluggish shipbuilding industry and sagging exports. About 76-thousand jobs have been slashed in the manufacturing industry in a year.

It is the third straight month that the number of new employees in the manufacturing sector contracted from a year earlier.