The number of long-term unemployed people in South Korea during the first half of this year hit a 18-year high. <br />Data released by Statistics Korea on Saturday shows the monthly average stood at 144-thousand,... 17-thousand more than the same period last year. <br />The long-term unemployed refers to people who have been searching for a job more than six months. <br />Those who fail to land a job after months of trying tend to give up altogether.<br />The monthly average of those giving up on finding work reached some half-a-million,... the highest since 2014,... when related figures were first recorded under the same criteria as now. <br />
