The fourth-quarter reading marked the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2018, when the statistics agency began to release such data.
During the third quarter of last year, 213,000 jobs were also created.
Park Jin-woo, the director handling the data at Statistics Korea, said the hike was helped by increased jobs in the wholesale sector and an increased number of people joining the state-run employment insurance.
Meanwhile, the Korean economy slashed 96,000 jobs and 12,000 jobs in the construction and manufacturing sectors, respectively, in the fourth quarter.
By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)