Some laid-off men put on their suits and ties and walk out the door every morning, preferring to pretend to go to work rather than tell loved ones the truth.
Others are abandoning their families or, more and more often, killing themselves.In a nation accustomed to lifetime employment and years of steadily increasing income, many are finding themselves ill-prepared for the emotional and financial trauma of growing unemployment. The man is still the sole bread-winner in the majority of Korean households - and his failure can carry with it the heavy burden of dishonor.
"My family does not know I am staying in the park," Kim Chin-pal, 47, said from a tent in a central Seoul park.
"I miss them very much but I cannot return home until I get a job to support them," said the laid-off construction worker, who arrived in Seoul two months ago from the southeastern city of Taeju.
Last fall's currency meltdown and the economic restructuring now under way drove South Korea's jobless rate from 2.1 percent in October to 6.7 percent in April. Each day, about 100 companies go bankrupt and 7,000 people lose their jobs.
Suicides, according to government officials, are up 36 percent over last year to 25 a day, largely because of the economy.
Homelessness, previously rare, reportedly also is on the rise because, like Kim, some men are leaving their families to look for work.
A small rise also has been reported in child abandonment, with couples and single mothers putting their children into institutions until times get better.
Working women, still a minority in Korea, also worry the economic crisis is undermining their struggle for workplace equality. Some companies cut women employees first when times get tough, women's organizations say.
The unemployed fill chairs in the Seoul train station waiting room or visit jobless centers looking for positions that don't exist.
If people are in unfamiliar territory, so is their government.
In its scramble to pull Korea's economy from ruins and transform it into a global leader in just three decades, little thought went into creating a social safety net.
So when the Asian economic crisis spread to South Korea last year, "economists were at a loss to make policy recommendations for dealing with the sheer size of mass unemployment," according to a report by the government-funded Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade.
As the number of unemployed swelled from 400,000 to 1.4 million in six months, civic and religious groups rushed to help, setting up homeless shelters, soup kitchens and counseling centers.
In March, the government announced a plan that included one-time unemployment payments of about $150 as well as loans, vocational training and job creation programs. Koreans, however, have been using an old saying to dismiss it - "a biscuit in the mouth of an elephant."
Procedures for getting the money are too complicated for a populace unversed in welfare programs. Government statistics indicate that only one unemployed person out of seven has received some kind of government benefit this year.
An estimated 2 million members of Korea's 21 million-strong work force are expected to be unemployed by the end of this year.
And even if the economy can be restructured in a couple of years to be a more efficient global competitor, workers will be forced to face the probability that job security never will be what it once was.
"Korean people tend to consider only lifetime employment jobs," said Lim Jong-son, who is organizing a YMCA jobless seminar. "People need to change their attitudes."
Min Ye-dong, who worked for a Seoul printing company until it began to fail last fall, has done just that. Today, the 36-year-old raises pears south of the capital and has advice for others who've lost their jobs. "The most important thing is to have courage and have a will to make a new beginning," Min said.