The unemployment rate in the Republic of Korea as of April 2019 is 4.8 per cent, or about 1,197,000 people. Since its rapid globalisation and democratisation, the unemployment rate has been comparatively low compared to most OECD countries. However, in the past decade, the unemployment rate has been rising steadily, going against the OECD average of a 1.6 percent drop over the same amount of time. Despite being Asia’s fourth-largest economy, the country's booming exports are mostly due to major manufacturing companies relying on outsourcing lower-paid roles to mitigate the country’s mandatory minimum wage increase, and automating the majority of manual jobs as the country’s technological boom sends South Korea to the top of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR)’s robot density lis