'The Stolen Spring of Youth' 63.6% of Large Corporations Have '0' or Undecided Hiring for the First Half of the Year

Korea Economic Research Institute Surveys 2021 H1 New Hiring Plans of Top 500 Companies by Sales
H1 New Hiring: No Hiring 17.3%, Undecided 46.3%, Planned 36.4%
Ad Hoc Hiring Share Increased from 66.7% in Last H1 to 76.4% This H1

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] Six out of ten large corporations have no hiring plans or are undecided for the first half of this year.

According to a survey conducted by the Korea Economic Research Institute on the 7th through the polling agency Research & Research targeting the top 500 companies by sales, 63.6% of large corporations responded that they either will not hire anyone or have not yet established hiring plans for the first half of 2021.

The proportion of companies planning new hires ('O') was 17.3%, while those without established hiring plans accounted for 46.3%. The Korea Economic Research Institute predicted that the new hiring market in the first half of this year will freeze further as the proportion of companies with no new hires or undecided plans increased compared to last year (8.8%, 32.5%).

The proportion of large corporations that established new hiring plans for the first half of this year was 36.4%. Among them, half (50%) planned to hire at a scale similar to last year, 30% planned to increase hiring, and 20% planned to reduce hiring.

Reasons for Poor New Hiring in Large Corporations? COVID-19 and Employment Rigidity

Companies that responded they would not hire new employees or would not increase hiring cited the following reasons in order: domestic and international economic and industry downturns (51.1%), employment rigidity (12.8%), difficulty securing talent suitable for required jobs (10.6%), and increased labor cost burdens such as minimum wage hikes (8.5%).

Among companies planning to increase new hires, 75% said it was to secure future talent regardless of economic conditions. Other reasons included increased demand for personnel in new industries or new job categories such as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (8.3%).

Why Do Companies Prefer Rolling Recruitment?

Companies expressed their intention to actively adopt rolling recruitment during the first half of this year. Among the surveyed companies, 76.4% said they would use rolling recruitment for new hires, an increase of 9.7 percentage points compared to the same period last year (66.7%).

Specifically, 38.2% of companies planned to hire new personnel exclusively through rolling recruitment, and another 38.2% planned to combine open recruitment with rolling recruitment. In contrast, only 23.6% of companies stuck solely to open recruitment.

Three out of ten companies pointed to an increase in the proportion of rolling recruitment as a future hiring market trend. Other notable changes in the hiring market included strengthening mid-career recruitment (20.3%), increased adoption of untact (contactless) recruitment (19.1%), increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in new hiring (13.9%), and increased recruitment of talent in fields related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (6.8%).

To increase new college graduate hiring, companies identified deregulation in labor and industrial sectors as the top policy the government or National Assembly should pursue (35.2%). This was followed by expanding incentives for companies that increase employment (24%), supporting growth engines for new industries (21.1%), improving the dual labor market structure biased toward regular workers and union members (10.3%), and resolving job mismatches through strengthened career guidance and employment information provision (9.4%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.