South Korea's Population Mobility Hits 48-Year Low in August
The number of those who moved residence inside and outside the same province or city stood at 511,000 in August, down 5.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.
It marked the lowest August reading since 1976. The figure had roughly been on the decline amid the rapidly aging population and the housing market slowdown.
The population mobility rate, which gauges the number of people moving to a different region for every 100 people, declined 0.6 percentage points over the year to 11.8 percent in August.
High interest rates led to the housing market slump, which lowered the number of those relocating to new homes.
The number of apartments scheduled to move in across the nation came to 56,000 between July and August, down about 10,000 compared to the same period of 2023, according to Yonhap news agency.
The central bank had left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January 2023 after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points in phases for the past one and a half years.
4155/v
