South Korea's job market is expected to recover modestly from the coronavirus pandemic as it will take more time for the number of people employed to recover to a pre-crisis level than to decline, according to a recent report by the Bank of Korea (BOK).

South Korea has rolled out about 280 trillion won ($251 billion) worth of stimulus measures to cushion the impact of the pandemic, but companies have hired fewer workers than expected amid persistent uncertainties over the global health crisis.

During the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, it took an additional one year for the nation's labor market to recover to its pre-crisis level after the economy returned to normal, the BOK report said.

As for the 2008 global financial crisis, it took an additional six months for employment to recover to its pre-crisis level after the economic recovery, it said.

"Even when COVID-19 subsides and the economy returns to its pre-crisis level in the future, the employment slump is not expected to be resolved quickly," the report said.

"The employment recovery could be slow, as new hiring is reduced and delayed until most workers on temporary absence and in unemployment return to work," it said.

Unless vaccines or treatments are widely available, social distancing rules will continue to be put in place, forcing face-to-face service industries to undergo a slump for a considerable time, the BOK said.

"During the past crises, compared to other service industries, it took a longer time for the number of the employed in the face-to-face service industry to recover to the pre-crisis level," it said.

With virus curbs continuing to ravage job markets, South Korea reported the largest job loss in January since 1998.

The number of employed people reached 25.8 million last month, 982,000 fewer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. It marked the sharpest on-year fall since December 1998, when the country lost 1.28 million jobs in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.

The country has reported job losses every month since March last year, when the nation lost about 195,000 jobs, the first on-year job loss since 2009. For all of 2020, the nation shed the largest number of jobs since 1998. (Yonhap)