South Korea's jobless rate rose in September from a year earlier due mainly to a protracted slowdown in the manufacturing sector and exports, a government report showed Wednesday.

    The unemployment rate in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 3.6% last month, compared with 3.2% tallied a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea. It marked the highest rate for the month of September in 11 years, South Korean News Agency (Yonhap) reported.

    The number of employed people stood at 26.5 million in September, up 267,000 from a year earlier, with the monthly gain dropping sharply from the previous month's 387,000.

    The unemployment rate for young people, aged between 15 and 29, reached 9.4% last month, up slightly from July's 9.3%. It also hit the highest rate for September since the statistics agency started to compile such data in 1999.

    The office attributed the record-breaking figures in jobless rates for September to the sluggish manufacturing sector, which has played a big role in employment for decades