NongHyup-Originated Butterfly Effect?…Will Commercial Banks Open Public Recruitment Next Year?

NongHyup Bank to Hire 450 Employees in First Half of Next Year
Bank Recruitment Market Expected to Loosen After Being Tight

The digital transformation and the impact of COVID-19 are expected to ease the tightly blocked bank recruitment market. (From left) KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NongHyup Bank headquarters buildings.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jin-ho] The tightly blocked bank recruitment market is expected to breathe new life due to digital transformation and the impact of COVID-19. NH Nonghyup Bank has become the first among major commercial banks to confirm a large-scale open recruitment for next year, drawing attention to whether other banks, which have recently increased only irregular hiring, will once again open the 'public recruitment gate.' However, since Nonghyup Bank has a 'special characteristic' different from other commercial banks, there is also a cautious view that the trend of recruitment expansion should be observed a bit longer.

According to the financial sector on the 13th, Nonghyup Bank will announce the '2022 First Half Grade 6 New Employee Early Recruitment' on the 14th of this month. The plan is to complete the placement at frontline branches by mid-March after written exams in mid-January and interviews in February. (Refer to our report on the 12th [Exclusive] Nonghyup Bank to hire 450 people in the first half of next year... the largest scale ever)

The recruitment will be conducted on a total scale of 450 people, including 420 general positions and 30 IT positions. This is comparable to the annual recruitment number of 470 this year and is the largest number since Nonghyup Bank was launched in 2012. In particular, it is evaluated as a 'record-breaking recruitment' even across the entire banking sector. Nonghyup Bank will hire nearly half of the total new employee recruitment scale (about 1,000 people) of the five major commercial banks for this year in just the first half of next year.

With Nonghyup Bank opening the door with large-scale recruitment, it is analyzed that the bank recruitment market, which has been stagnant in recent years, will also gain some momentum. There is an expectation that a considerable scale of recruitment may proceed next year, especially among some commercial banks that did not conduct public recruitment in the second half of this year.

It is also mentioned that the financial authorities' continuous pressure on the banking sector to create 'youth jobs' may have an influence. In fact, major policy banks such as the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, KDB Industrial Bank, and Korea Eximbank have significantly increased their recruitment scale this year compared to previous years. A financial sector official said, "Since the banks achieved record-high performance this year as well as last year despite the COVID-19 situation, the importance of the public role of commercial banks in recruitment and other areas is expected to be emphasized."

However, unlike Nonghyup Bank, there is also a forecast that it will not be easy for major commercial banks to return to large-scale public recruitment as in previous years. It is pointed out that the situation is different from Nonghyup Bank, which cannot easily reduce its size considering financial accessibility in rural areas.

In particular, the speed of branch consolidation and closure is very fast, and internally, the demand for personnel related to digital transformation is much greater than that of Nonghyup Bank, so such large-scale recruitment is practically impossible. A commercial bank official said, "Due to the impact of digitalization, the trend is shifting from public recruitment to irregular hiring," adding, "In the case of Nonghyup Bank, large-scale public recruitment is still conducted because of the special characteristic of its wide face-to-face channels."

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