More Major Companies Plan New College Graduate Hires for Second Half

The number of large corporations with plans to hire new college graduates in the second half of this year has significantly increased compared to last year.

According to a survey of the top 500 companies by sales (with 121 companies responding) conducted by Research & Research at the request of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) on September 29, 51.2 percent of responding companies answered that they have established plans to hire new college graduates in the second half of this year.

This represents a 14.0 percentage point increase from the 37.2 percent recorded in the second half of last year.

Companies with "undecided" hiring plans fell by 9.9 percentage points to 28.1 percent, while those with "no" hiring plans dropped by 4.1 percentage points to 20.7 percent.

Among the companies with hiring plans, 50.0 percent plan to hire on a scale similar to last year, 25.8 percent plan to reduce the scale, and 24.2 percent plan to increase it.

Compared to the second half of last year, the proportion of companies maintaining their hiring scale rose by 12.2 percentage points, and those reducing it fell by 12.0 percentage points.

The proportion of companies expanding their hiring decreased by 0.2 percentage points.

However, there were sharp disparities across industries.

More than half of the companies in wholesale and retail (71.5 percent), construction and civil engineering (61.5 percent), and distribution and logistics (55.5 percent) reported that their hiring plans were either undecided or nonexistent.

The FKI analyzed that "companies in domestic-oriented industries such as wholesale, retail, and distribution, as well as the construction sector, continue to show caution regarding new hiring as the economic recovery appears relatively slow in these fields."


Looking at the recruitment methods of companies with hiring plans, 54.9 percent plan to use a combination of open recruitment and selective hiring, up 17.1 percentage points from the second half of last year.

Companies planning to rely solely on selective hiring dropped by 9.9 percentage points to 14.5 percent, while those opting only for open recruitment decreased by 7.2 percentage points to 30.6 percent.

When evaluating new college graduates, organizational fit (23.4 percent) was most frequently cited as the most important factor, followed closely by work experience and general job competency, both at 18.4 percent.

Policy tasks cited to boost new college graduate hiring included "inducing corporate investment and employment expansion through deregulation" (30.6 percent), "expanding tax and financial incentives for companies that increase employment" (21.5 percent), and "enhancing flexibility in employment-related systems such as hiring, placement, and working hours" (19.8 percent).

Lee Sang-ho, head of the FKI Economic Division, emphasized, "As a significant proportion of companies in certain industries still have not set hiring plans or lack them altogether, it is necessary to create conditions that allow companies to expand their investment and employment capacity through tax support, such as expanding the integrated employment tax credit, and deregulation."


(Photo: Provided by the Federation of Korean Industries, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.