(Photo: Yonhap News)
A record 11.85 trillion won was paid in unemployment benefits last year amid unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor partly attributed the increase to an extension of the payment period that kicked in October 2019.
According to the ministry, the previous high was set in 2019, when the government paid 8.09 trillion won in job-seeking benefits.
For the month of December, there were 108,000 new applicants for job-seeking benefits, up 12.5 percent from the same month a year earlier.
In total, more than 956 billion won was paid to 600,000 recipients last month.
The country has reported job losses every month since March, when the nation lost about 195,000 jobs and marked the first on-year job loss since 2009, due to fallout from the pandemic.
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