SEOUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's employment rose 171,000 in April from a year earlier, with the jobless rate gaining to 4.4 percent, a government report showed Wednesday.

The number of those employed totaled 27,038,000 in April, up 171,000 from the same month of last year, according to Statistics Korea.

It was down from increases of over 200,000 in February and March, but it stayed high compared with a growth of 19,000 in January.

The hiring rate inched down 0.1 percentage point to 60.8 percent in April. The OECD-method employment rate fell 0.1 percentage point to 66.5 percent.

The number of those unemployed grew 84,000 over the year to 1,245,000 in April. The unemployment rate advanced 0.3 percentage points to 4.4 percent in the month.

Jobless rate for youths aged 15-29 stood at 11.5 percent in April, up 0.8 percentage points from a year ago. It was the highest April figure since 2000.