South Korea suffered its biggest job loss in over two decades last year due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the number of employed people reached 26-point-nine million in 2020, down 218-thousand from a year earlier. 

That's the largest fall since 1998 when it shed one-point-28 million. 

For the month of December, South Korea reported a loss of 628-thousand jobs from a year earlier. 

It marks the tenth straight month of job losses and the biggest on-year drop since February 1999, when the country lost 658-thousand jobs in the wake of the foreign currency crisis. 

The country's jobless rate rose by point-two percentage points on-year to four percent last year, the highest since 2001, with the number of jobless people rising 45-thousand on-year to more than one-point-one million.

The employment rate slipped by point-eight percentage points on-year to 60-point-one percent last year, the lowest since 2013.