70% of Small and Medium Enterprises Plan to Hire 6.6 New Employees This Year

It was found that 70% of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) plan to hire an average of 6.6 new employees this year.

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 14th the results of the '2023 Recruitment Trend Survey' conducted from April 17 to 28 targeting 1,031 SMEs registered on the 'Pretty Good SME' platform.

Among the responding companies, 71% have plans to hire new personnel this year, with an average of 6.6 hires planned. The job category with the highest hiring plan was 'production positions' (44.7%). The manufacturing sector showed a relatively high proportion of production position hiring plans.

When hiring, companies generally preferred 'experienced workers' (37.6%). The proportion of respondents who said no specific qualifications were required was also high at 41.4%.

62.9% of respondents said the scale of hiring this year is similar to last year. Those planning to expand hiring (27.4%) significantly outnumbered those planning to reduce it (9.7%).

In the survey on this year’s workforce management status, more than half (55.7%) of SMEs responded that their workforce situation is appropriate.

The ratio of current employees to required personnel averaged 90.9%, an 8 percentage point increase compared to last year. The percentage of companies hiring '100%' or more of their required personnel also rose to 49.9% from 29.3% last year. This is interpreted as employment conditions gradually recovering following the easing of COVID-19 quarantine measures.

Regarding the recent policy mandating the disclosure of salary and working conditions in job postings, positive opinions (38.8%) generally outweighed negative opinions (8.7%). The top reason for positive views was that it allows securing applicants who have pre-agreed to the working conditions (48.8%). Conversely, among companies with negative views, 65.6% expressed concerns that the policy would deepen the avoidance of SMEs, which tend to offer relatively lower wages.

Regarding hiring older workers, the opinion that there is 'no intention' to hire older workers (63%) was 1.7 times higher than the opinion that there is an intention (37%).

Negative reasons for utilizing older workers included 'low productivity' (32.5%), 'high labor costs' (25.7%), and 'potential for generational conflicts within the organization' (24.0%). Negative reasons varied by industry. In IT services and information and communication sectors, the most common concern was the burden of high labor costs (40%), whereas in manufacturing, 'low productivity' (37.2%) and concerns about industrial accidents (25.9%) were more prominent.

The biggest positive reason for utilizing older workers was 'influx and retention of skilled personnel' (59.6%). Especially in manufacturing, there was a relatively high opinion that hiring older workers helps alleviate labor shortages (43.2%).

Lee Myung-ro, Head of the Workforce Policy Division at the Korea Federation of SMEs, stated, “Since most excellent SMEs have a definite intention to hire new employees, active support for job matching between hiring companies and job-seeking youth is necessary. We will focus on providing quality job information to young people by improving category accessibility on the currently operating platform and diversifying corporate information content.”

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