The number of discouraged workers - or people who have stopped looking for jobs - has hit an all-time high for the month of June, with nearly half of them being in their 20s and 30s. 

According to Statistics Korea on Monday, there were 583-thousand people who were no longer seeking jobs last month, up 46-thousand from a year earlier. The tally was the highest for the month since 2014.

"Discouraged workers" are unemployed people who desire 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 sum of such people has been breaking monthly records for 16 straight months since March 2020, largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a data analysis by Yonhap News Agency, out of the 583-thousand discouraged workers, 186-thousand were in their 20s and 87-thousand in their 30s, jointly taking up 46-point-eight percent of the group.

Discouraged workers over 60 were growing in ratio as well, taking up 28-point-six percent of the total, compared to 20-point-four percent logged a year earlier.