A new government data shows that nearly one in five foreign residents in South Korea are overstaying their visas amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the Justice Ministry’s Korea Immigration Service Statistics on Sunday, the proportion of illegal foreign workers in the nation tallied at a record 19-point-seven percent as of April. 

The monthly figure has risen steadily from 16-point-three percent in January of last year, when Korea confirmed its first COVID-19 patient, with the exception of last July when the number slipped from 18-point-eight percent to 18-point-seven percent. 

The study also showed that the number of illegal foreign residents also surged to 392-thousand in April, the highest this year. 

The protracted pandemic has also prompted the total number of foreign residents in the country to fall to one-point-nine million in April, slipping below 2 million for the first time since 2015.