In the case of export-oriented firms, this figure rose to more than 50%. More than one million jobs have been created by the ten thousand or so Korean enterprises that have set up businesses in China. At the same time, the rate of unemployment among people in their twenties in Korea has reached a high level of above 7%.
Inward direct investment by foreign companies, meanwhile, has also fallen off. Flows of foreign direct investment into the Korean manufacturing sector stood at 2.9 billion dollars in 2001, but this figure has continued to shrink since then, reaching 2.3 billion dollars in 2002 and just 1.7 billion dollars last year.