Anchor: New data shows that a record number of people remained unemployed after trying to find a job for more than six months last year. Despite a boom in exports, the labor market remains weak as economic growth has been led by sectors that spur little job growth, such as semiconductors. 
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: Some 147-thousand people remained jobless for more than six months last year, according to Statistics Korea on Tuesday. 

That’s up ten-and-a-half percent from the previous year. 

The figure was higher than numbers posted during the financial crises in 2000 and 2009 and the highest to date since related statistics began to be compiled in 2000. 

The long-term unemployed accounted for 14-point-three percent of the total jobless. That’s also a new high. 

The percentage had stood at seven-and-a-half percent in 2014 before surging to ten percent in 2015 and then to 13-point-one percent in 2016. 

Analysts blame the prolonged depression in employment conditions for the rise in the number of people who have remained jobless for long periods of time. 

The jobless rate for young people, aged between 15 and 29, was a whopping nine-point-nine percent for 2017, marking the worst figure since the government started compiling the annual data. The figure has been posting new highs for the last four years. 

Others say more people remain unemployed for a long period of time because the quality of jobs is worsening. 

In other words, most of the long-term unemployed fail to land jobs because they are not able to find employment in large companies, which are hiring less people. 

The actual number of the long-term unemployed could be even higher given that some job seekers look for jobs after being categorized as economically inactive. 
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.