Financial Firms Lock Hiring Doors... "What Happens to Liberal Arts Graduates as Bankers?" (Comprehensive)

4 Major Banks Hire About 898 People... 55% Decrease Compared to Last Year
5 Major Savings Banks, 74 of 103 Hires Are Experienced
Most Job Postings Focus on Digital and IT Departments
Industry: "Impact of Significant Increase in Non-Face-to-Face and Digital Financial Transactions"

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop]“It seems increasingly difficult to get a job at a bank. I don’t understand how they expect someone from a liberal arts background preparing for the financial sector to get in. When I look, there are a few job postings, but they are mostly looking for candidates from science and engineering fields.”

On a financial sector job preparation site used by 540,000 people, complaints about how difficult it has become for liberal arts students to find employment have been frequently posted recently. Despite financial companies breaking record-high performances, the hiring doors remain tightly shut. Moreover, most of the few job postings that do appear target experienced professionals or digital talent, further narrowing the path for liberal arts graduates preparing for employment.

According to the office of Assemblyman Yoon Chang-hyun on the 21st, the total number of hires at the four major banks?KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, and Hana?at the end of last year was only 898. This is a decrease of 1,136 people (55.8%) from 2,034 the previous year. Compared to 2018, when 2,663 were hired, it dropped by 1,765 people (66.2%). In particular, the number of new employee hires shrank from 1,693 in 2019 to just 550, nearly one-third.

On the other hand, experienced hires have gradually increased each year. From 321 in 2018, it rose to 341 in one year, and last year, 348 experienced employees were recruited. Financial companies, which typically hire 10-12% of their total recruits as experienced professionals, filled 38.7% of last year’s total hires with experienced workers.

The preference for experienced candidates is also evident in the secondary financial sector. The five major savings banks?SBI, OK, Welcome, Pepper, and Korea Investment?hired 103 people last year, sharply down from 517 the previous year. While in 2017, they hired 389 new employees and 209 experienced workers, in 2020, only 29 new employees were hired, and experienced hires numbered 74, about 2.5 times more.

Welcome Savings Bank, which posted job openings in the first quarter, recruited for 18 positions, all in IT roles. Except for financial system development and information security roles, 16 were for experienced hires. Notably, four positions related to MyData were included. They broadly recruited practical personnel such as programming language users and those with experience in web channel and app development.

Major securities firms (KB, NH Investment & Securities, Mirae Asset Daewoo, Samsung, Yuanta, Korea Investment Securities), which recorded record-breaking performances due to low interest rates and the Donghak Ant Movement, were no exception. These securities firms, which hired 975 people in 2018, reduced their hiring to 765 last year despite improved performance. The preference for experienced hires was also evident, with 469 experienced employees hired, 133 more than the 296 new employees.

‘Rare as Beans in a Drought’ Job Openings... Digital Talent Sweeps Them Up

The few new employee job postings that appeared were mostly concentrated in digital, information and communication technology (IT), and data sectors. As non-face-to-face financial transactions increase, banks are rapidly closing offline branches, reducing the need for personnel. For example, among the three regular new employee recruitments (L1) excluding special hires at KB Kookmin Bank last month, two were in IT and data sectors. The remaining management expert positions require at least three years of experience or a master’s degree.

The trend of public recruitment focusing on digital talent is the same for rapidly growing internet-only banks. Toss Bank, which is about to officially launch operations, announced this month that it will hire experienced developers and designers in the tech field. The target includes experts in product planning, design, engineering, security, and infrastructure in the tech sector. K Bank is also accepting applications for experienced hires until the end of this month. The recruitment targets all IT fields including development, infrastructure, and information security. Including large commercial banks, the gateway for liberal arts graduates preparing for jobs has virtually disappeared across the entire financial sector.

Even financial public institutions, considered ‘top’ among financial job seekers, are relatively reluctant to hire new employees. Public institutions and government enterprises typically hire new employees regularly. However, as more institutions struggle with personnel stagnation, voices calling for downsizing are growing. The comprehensive planning staff (G5) recruitment at the Bank of Korea, which started yesterday, announced it would hire only 50 people this year, down from 70 in 2017. Most government enterprises have only posted internship recruitment notices.

The financial industry explains this as an inevitable phenomenon. With non-face-to-face transactions and digital finance becoming the norm, they have no choice but to prefer IT personnel.

A financial sector official said, “In the past, serving customers at the counter did not require a distinction between liberal arts and science backgrounds, but times have changed. There is almost no need for large-scale personnel in areas with fixed manuals like counter work.” He added, “The rapid changes have created a shortage of IT talent, so they are hiring heavily, but it is a temporary phenomenon that they are not hiring liberal arts graduates at all.”

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