SEOUL -- South Korea's unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent in January, a government report showed Wednesday.

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The jobless rate dropped to 3.8 percent in January, down from 5. 0 percent a year earlier, the Statistics Korea said in a report. It was up 0.3 percentage point from 3.5 percent in December.

The number of people employed reached 23.19 million last month, up 331,000 from a year earlier, the report showed.

The country's job creation was beyond the 300,000-mark for the fourth consecutive month, with 316,000 new jobs in October, 303, 000 in November, 455,000 in December respectively.

Non-farm sector led the job creation in January. Health and social welfare, and science and technology gained 189,000 and 78, 000 jobs respectively, according to the report.

Agriculture and fisheries lost 104,000 jobs in January, hit by seasonal factors such as a protracted cold spell.