The number of discouraged workers - or people who have stopped looking for jobs - hit an all-time high last year.

According to Statistics Korea on Monday, there were 628-thousand people who were no longer seeking jobs in 2021. The annual tally was the highest since 2014.

"Discouraged workers" are unemployed people who wish to work but have taken a break from job-seeking or given up altogether after failing to find work in the previous four weeks due to reasons linked to the labor market. 

The number of long-term unemployed, who failed to get jobs after searching more than six months, also increased eight-point-one percent on-year to 128-thousand in 2021. 

The figure marked the first increase in three years, with nearly half being in their 20s and 30s.

Last year, the number of unemployed decreased by 71-thousand from a year earlier to one-point-03 million, with the jobless rate falling by zero-point-three percentage points to three-point-seven percent.