The South Korean economy plunged into recession in the second quarter in its worst decline in more than two decades as the coronavirus pandemic battered exports and social distancing curbs paralyzed factory output.
Asia's fourth-largest economy shrank by a seasonally adjusted 3.3 percent in the June quarter from three months earlier, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday. That is the sharpest contraction since the first quarter of 1998 and steeper than a 2.3 percent contraction projected in a Reuters poll.
That took the year-on-year contraction in gross domestic product to 2.9 percent, the worst since the fourth quarter of 1998 and also underperforming a 2.0 percent decline seen in the poll.