The number of delivery workers has fallen this year, following sharp growth in recent years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, while the number of cooks rose to an all-time high with people returning to pre-pandemic normalcy, data showed.

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. (Yonhap)