The number of long-term unemployed people in South Korea marked the largest growth in 19 years this year.
 
According to Statistics Korea data, people who have been searching for a job for over six months came to an average 152-thousand between January and September, up ten-thousand or six-point-nine percent from the same period last year.
 
That is the largest figure since June 1999 when the nation first applied the current criteria to compile related data. Even in 2000, when the nation was still reeling from the aftermath of the 1997 foreign currency crisis, the comparable figure stood at 142-thousand.
 
The combined number of the so-called long-term unemployed reached one-point-11 million over the January-September period, up 51-thousand on-year. This is the highest number among available data over the past 19 years.
 
Due to the rising number of long-term jobseekers, the country's expenditures on unemployed benefits set another record.
 
The Korea Employment Information Service's spending on unemployment benefits came to more than five trillion won during the cited period, jumping over 23 percent on-year.