"Only 25% of Companies with Hiring Plans Expand Recruitment Compared to Last Year"

KCCI, 2021 New Recruitment and Untact Hiring Utilization Survey

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] A survey revealed that less than 25% of companies that have set hiring plans for this year are expanding their recruitment compared to last year, which experienced an economic downturn due to COVID-19.

The Korea Employers Federation conducted the "2021 New Hiring and Untact Hiring Utilization Survey" targeting 504 companies with over 100 employees nationwide. The results, announced on the 13th, showed that among companies with new hiring plans this year, 37.9% planned to hire a similar number as last year, 37.4% planned to reduce hiring compared to last year, and 24.6% planned to expand hiring.

Among the 504 companies surveyed, 40.3% responded that they have new hiring plans, 33.9% were undecided about new hiring, and 25.8% had no plans to hire. Notably, even at the time when hiring for the first half of the year had already begun (late March to early April), 59.7% of respondents either had no new hiring plans or had not decided whether to hire this year.

When asked about the main difficulties faced during new hiring, 60.0% of companies cited a shortage of applicants with the desired skills as the biggest challenge. Other responses included "successful candidates declined to join or left early" at 17.4%, "difficulty meeting applicants' demands (such as wages)" at 16.8%, and "an excessive number of applicants" at 4.2%.

Regarding the utilization of untact (non-face-to-face) hiring, only 13.9% of respondent companies answered that they had introduced untact hiring. Among companies that adopted untact hiring, 41.4% reported that it was difficult to conduct in-depth evaluations as the biggest disadvantage.

Additionally, among companies that did not adopt untact hiring, 51.6% cited concerns that in-depth evaluations would be difficult as the main reason.

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