South Korea

On 16 October 2026, South Korea published September employment figures using a new youth age band of fifteen to thirty-four. Employment fell by 98,000 over the year on that measure. The previous fifteen-to-twenty-nine band showed a larger fall of 147,000, because employment among people in their early thirties had grown.

The change followed an August Bank of Korea study using pension records. That study traced 268,000 of a 285,000 decline in youth jobs since 2022 to industries exposed to artificial intelligence. Workers in their fifties gained jobs in those same industries, leaving younger Koreans facing a different labour market from older colleagues.

South Korea’s climate and energy ministry plans to publish grid rules for artificial intelligence data centres before the end of 2026, Newspim reported on 21 October. The proposed requirements would make sites remain connected during power faults and keep voltage stable. MP Cho Kyoung-tae sought an exemption for projects already under way.

The rules would arrive during a new building cycle. On 7 October, KT Cloud announced a 50 MW project with Hyundai Engineering at Cheongna in Incheon. Construction was scheduled for late 2026 and completion for early 2030, placing another large electricity user in the Seoul capital region.

South Korean shipping suffered a direct attack on 1 September 2026, when unidentified projectiles struck the tanker Senegal Prosperity near Khasab, Oman. The vessel was leaving the strait of Hormuz with its transponder switched off. The Saudi-operated Sidr came under attack within minutes. Nobody claimed responsibility.

For South Korea’s energy importers, the route also became more expensive. By mid-October, moving a Gulf barrel to Asian buyers cost more than $37, according to the International Energy Agency’s 21 October report. That freight bill had grown fivefold since before the war. Korean buyers faced that regional transport cost alongside the danger to vessels carrying supplies through the Gulf.