The number of foreigners on working holiday and migrant workers on non-professional work visas in South Korea dropped this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data was based on foreign workers 15 and older as of May 15 who stayed in the county for over 90 days. 

Some 38-thousand foreigners came into the country for working holidays in the period through May, a decline of over 23 percent on-year. Migrant workers on the E9 visa also dropped about 14 percent, hitting only 36-thousand.

Statistics Korea explained that 50 to 60-thousand foreign workers entered Korea for non-specialized jobs before the pandemic outbreak, but the figure dropped after.

The employment rate of all foreign workers, meanwhile, slightly rebounded from last year, up by point-five percentage points to 64-point-two percent or 855-thousand people for 2021.