Delayed Recovery in Job Market... Half of Large Corporations Have No New Hiring or Undecided Plans for First Half of the Year

Survey on New Hiring Plans for the First Half of 2022 Among Top 500 Companies by Sales
6 Out of 10 Planned Hires Are in Science and Engineering Fields

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] A forecast has emerged that the large corporation hiring market will be bleak in the first half of this year, as half of the large companies reported having no new hiring or undecided plans. Among the planned hires, 6 out of 10 prefer STEM majors, indicating that employment opportunities for liberal arts graduates will become even narrower.

On the 6th, the Federation of Korean Industries (hereafter FKI) commissioned Research & Research, a polling agency, to survey the ‘2022 First Half New Hiring Plans’ targeting the top 500 companies by sales. The results showed that half (50.0%) of large companies either have not established new hiring plans for the first half of this year or responded that they will not hire anyone. The proportion of companies without new hiring plans was 42.1%, and those with no new hiring at all was 7.9%.

The FKI analyzed, “Although the proportion of companies without new hiring plans or with no new hiring has decreased compared to the same period last year (63.6%), considering that the job market was very unfavorable last year, this still indicates that the job market remains difficult.”

The proportion of companies that have established new hiring plans for the first half of this year is only 50.0%. Among them, 54.3% plan to hire about the same number as last year, 41.4% intend to increase hiring, and 4.3% plan to reduce hiring.

The reasons companies gave for not hiring new employees or not increasing hiring scale were ▲difficulty securing talent with necessary job skills (19.2%), ▲poor domestic and international economic and industry conditions due to the resurgence of COVID-19 (17.3%), ▲company difficulties (13.5%), ▲difficulty in flexible workforce restructuring (13.5%), ▲no internal workforce demand (11.5%), ▲only conducting recruitment in the second half of the year (3.9%), and ▲management difficulties due to excessive regulatory legislation such as the Three Major Corporate Regulation Laws, Labor Union Act, and Serious Accident Punishment Act (1.9%), in that order.

In the first half of this year’s college graduate hiring market, companies prefer STEM majors. Among the planned new hires for college graduates in the first half, 6 out of 10 (61.0%) are graduates from STEM fields. This was followed by humanities majors (36.7%) and other majors such as medical, arts, and physical education (2.3%). The FKI pointed out, “Due to the acceleration of digital transformation in industrial structure and the increasing importance of R&D, preference for STEM personnel continues to rise, but the university major structure cannot keep up, exacerbating youth employment difficulties.”

Meanwhile, more than 6 out of 10 companies (62.1%) said they would utilize rolling recruitment in the first half’s new hiring. Among them, 15.0% conduct only rolling recruitment, and 47.1% plan to combine open recruitment and rolling recruitment. Hiring experienced workers who can be immediately deployed in practical work is also expected to be active. Companies stated that 3 out of 10 (29.7%) of the planned new hires in the first half will be experienced hires.

To increase new college graduate hiring, companies most frequently cited deregulation in labor and industrial sectors (43.6%) as the policy the next government should focus on. Following that were ▲expanding incentives for companies that increase employment (18.6%), ▲supporting companies in new growth industries (17.9%), ▲expanding vocational training support in the Fourth Industrial Revolution sectors (9.3%), ▲improving the dual labor market structure biased toward regular and unionized workers (5.0%), ▲strengthening career guidance and providing employment information to resolve mismatches (4.3%), among others.

Choo Kwang-ho, head of the FKI Economic Headquarters, said, “Due to recent uncertainties such as the Omicron surge, interest rate hikes, and the Ukraine crisis, there are concerns that the employment market recovery will be delayed,” and emphasized, “The next government must make every effort to enhance employment capacity by easing corporate regulations and expanding incentives so that Korean companies can maintain jobs.”

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