Current Economic Situation, June 2021

 

Retail Sales, Services and Facilities Investment Rise,

Employment Continuing to Recover

 

Retail sales, services and facilities investment improved in April, manufacturing and construction slowing.  Employment continued to recover in May and consumer prices rose faster. 

 

Industrial production fell 1.1 percent from the previous month in April due to the strong service sector (up 0.4%, m-o-m and up 8.4%, y-o-y).  Mining and manufacturing continued to go down (down 1.6%, m-o-m and up 12.4%, y-o-y).  Industrial production rose 8.8 percent year on year.

 

Retail sales (up 2.3%, m-o-m and up 8.6%, y-o-y) and facilities investment (up 3.5%, m-o-m and up 16.8%, y-o-y) improved.  Construction investment fell (down 0.8%, m-o-m and down 1.8%, y-o-y).

 

Exports jumped 45.6 percent year-on-year in May backed by strong chips, petrochemicals and other major products.  Average daily exports, an indicator calculated according to the days worked, improved 49.0 percent from a year ago (US $1.62 billion, May 2020 → US $2.42 billion, May 2021).

 

The consumer sentiment index (CSI) rose 3.0 points in May to 105.2.  The business sentiment index (BSI) for the manufacturing stayed flat at 96, and the BSI outlook for June fell 1 point to 97. 

 

The cyclical indicator of the coincident composite index for April rose 1.1 points to 101.3, and the cyclical indicator of the leading composite index increased 0.4 points to 103.6.

 

The economy added 619,000 jobs year-on-year in May and the unemployment rate fell 0.5 percentage points from a year ago to 4.0 percent.

 

Consumer prices rose 2.6 percent year-on-year in May due to high prices of fresh food and oil, as well as a low base effect.  Core inflation rose 1.5 percent.

 

Stock prices rose in May on expectations of economic recovery, both global and local.  The won strengthened amid weak dollars, and Korea treasury yields went up in line with high global interest rates.

 

Home-price growth edged down in May (up 0.71% → up 0.70%, m-o-m), and Jeonse (lump-sum deposits with no monthly payments) price growth stayed on the same slope (up 0.36% → up 0.36%, m-o-m).

 

The economy saw exports and investment continue to recover, as well as domestic demand.  April and May job reports presented significant increases.

 

Major economies’ growth outlook being revised upwards amid expanded vaccine rollouts and fiscal stimulus, inflation worries continue in part due to soaring commodities prices. 

 

The government will draw up its second half economic policies and second extra budget proposal with a focus on helping the economy keep up the recovery momentum and create more jobs, as well as on bolstering pandemic-hit household support and strengthening risk management.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key Statistics

 

 

Employment

	2020										2021
	Annual	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Number of employed (million)	26.90	26.56	26.93	27.06	27.11	27.08	27.01	27.09	27.24	26.53	25.82	26.37	26.92	27.21	27.55
Employment rate (%)	60.1	59.4	60.2	60.4	60.5	60.4	60.3	60.4	60.7	59.1	57.4	58.6	59.8	60.4	61.2
(Seasonally adjusted)	60.1	59.4	59.6	59.7	59.9	60.0	59.8	59.8	60.1	59.6	58.9	60.1	60.3	60.4	60.6

 

 

 

Consumer Price Index

(%)

	2020								2021
	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
y-o-y	-0.3	0.0	0.3	0.7	1.0	0.1	0.6	0.5	0.6	1.1	1.5	2.3	2.6
m-o-m	-0.2	0.2	0.0	0.6	0.7	-0.6	-0.1	0.2	0.8	0.5	0.1	0.2	0.1

 

 

 

Mining and Manufacturing

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

1. Preliminary

2. Including mining, manufacturing, and electricity and gas production

3. End-period

 

 

Service Output

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb	Mar¹	Apr¹
Service output	1.4	0.3	0.5	0.7	0.4	-2.0	-2.9	-1.3	2.0	0.9	0.7	-0.1	1.1	1.3	0.4

1. Preliminary

 

 

Retail Sales

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb	Mar¹	Apr¹
Retail sales	2.4	1.5	0.2	-0.1	2.0	-0.2	-5.7	5.9	-1.1	0.9	1.7	1.6	-0.9	2.3	2.3
y-o-y	-	1.6	2.0	2.3	3.3	-	-2.9	2.0	1.6	-1.2	6.3	0.0	8.2	10.9	8.6

1. Preliminary

 

 

Facility Investment Index

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb	Mar¹	Apr¹
Facility investment index	-5.7	-3.4	2.1	2.0	3.4	6.0	-1.0	2.7	2.2	0.8	6.9	6.3	-2.2	0.0	3.5
y-o-y	-	-18.2	-6.3	-1.3	4.5	-	8.1	5.8	7.7	2.8	11.9	19.4	7.1	9.5	16.8

1. Preliminary

 

Construction Completed

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Feb	Mar¹	Apr¹
Construction completed (constant)	-2.3	2.6	0.2	-2.2	1.0	-4.1	-0.7	-2.9	-2.8	2.5	-3.6	6.8	0.3	-0.8
y-o-y	-	-5.9	-2.4	-3.4	2.1	-	-0.8	-5.5	-4.2	-5.3	-7.2	-8.3	-5.7	-1.8

1. Preliminary

 

 

Composite Indices of Coincident and Leading Indicators

 (Points)

	2020				2021
	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar¹	Apr¹
Cyclical indicator of coincident composite index	98.5	99.0	99.5	99.7	99.4	99.7	100.2	101.3
m-o-m (points)	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.2	-0.3	0.3	0.5	1.1
Cyclical indicator of leading composite index	101.0	101.4	102.0	102.4	102.7	102.9	103.2	103.6
m-o-m (points)	0.4	0.4	0.6	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.3	0.4

1. Preliminary

 

Exports and Imports

(US$ billion, y-o-y, %)

	2017	2018	2019	2020						2021
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	May	Q3	Q4	Q1	Apr¹	May¹
Exports	573.69	604.86	542.22	512.50	130.18	110.34	34.85	130.07	141.90	146.45	51.22	50.73
(y-o-y, %)	15.8	5.4	-10.4	-5.5	-1.9	-20.3	-23.7	-3.5	4.1	12.5	41.2	45.6
Average daily exports	2.13	2.24	1.99	1.88	1.91	1.65	1.62	1.86	2.09	2.22	2.13	2.42
Imports	478.48	535.20	503.34	467.63	124.50	108.39	34.66	114.07	123.68	136.10	50.79	47.81
(y-o-y, %)	17.8	11.9	-6.0	-7.1	-1.9	-15.8	-20.5	-8.7	-1.7	12.0	33.9	37.9
Average daily imports	1.78	1.98	1.85	1.71	1.79	1.62	1.61	1.63	1.82	2.06	2.12	2.28

1. Preliminary

 

 

Please refer to the attached pdf