A delivery worker in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of deliver workers has fallen this year following a sharp growth in recent years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, while that of cooks rose to an all-time high as people returned to pre-pandemic normalcy, data showed Tuesday.
The number of delivery workers fell by 24,000 during the January-June period to 426,000, marking the first on-year fall since 2019, according to Statistics Korea.
The couriers and messengers industry had a total of 343,000 jobs in 2019, and the figure jumped to 371,000 in 2020, 423,000 in 2021 and further to a record high of 450,000 in 2022 to meet the rising demand for such services amid the pandemic.
South Korea, on the contrary, had 83,000 new cooks during the cited period, bringing the total number to a record high of 1.14 million, the data showed.
The occupation logged the sharpest growth rate in the country in the first half.
The number of employees in the food and beverage service sector also rose by 62,000 to 581,000, according to the data.
In May, South Korea lifted almost all antivirus curbs after the World Health Organization announced that the virus is no longer a global health emergency.
(Yonhap)
