If you’d asked me five minutes ago which Asian country has the highest suicide rate per 10,000 people - between Japan and South Korea, I’d have said Japan…and as usual, I’d have been wrong. Nope, the winner of the Suicide Rate Sweepstakes does in fact go to South Korea. I am called to wonder what the suicide rate in North Korea is like.

Up to 56 percent of suicides were committed by the jobless, with the female suicide rate posting a 19-percent rise between 2003 and 2007, Lim said, citing police statistics.

Suicides now stand as the No. 4 cause of deaths in South Korea. South Korea’s suicide rate has been the highest in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2005.

An average of 25 out of every 100,000 people kill themselves in South Korea, followed by Hungary (22.6 persons), Japan (20.3 persons) and Belgium (18.4 persons).

“The increasing suicides in Korea have become a pan-national issue which the government must tackle with more strategic plans,” Lim told Yonhap News Agency.