6 out of 10 Large Companies Have No or Undecided Plans for New Hiring in the Second Half of the Year

Hankyung Association's 'Survey on New Graduate Hiring Plans for 500 Major Companies in the Second Half'
57.5% Undecided or No Hiring... Tight Management and Economic Slowdown Lead

Six out of ten large companies have either undecided plans or no plans for new hires in the second half of this year. However, the number of companies that responded they have hiring plans increased by more than 7 percentage points compared to the second half of last year.

On May 21st, job seekers were checking the job posting board at the Mid-sized Companies Job Fair held at COEX in Seoul. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

According to the ‘Second Half New Graduate Hiring Plan Survey’ released by the Korea Economic Association on the 29th, 57.5% of the 120 companies among the top 500 companies by sales that responded said they either have no hiring plans this year or have not yet established them. The proportion of companies that have not established hiring plans was 40.0%, and those that stated they have no hiring plans accounted for 17.5%.

The most common reason given for not hiring new employees or not increasing the hiring scale was ‘tightened management to respond to deteriorating profitability and management uncertainty’ (23.8%). This was followed by ‘economic downturn due to prolonged global recession, high interest rates, and high exchange rates’ (20.6%), and ‘difficulty in securing talent with the necessary job skills’ (17.5%).

The percentage of companies that responded they have established hiring plans was 42.5%, an increase of 7.1 percentage points compared to 35.4% in the second half of last year. The Korea Economic Association explained, "This is interpreted as companies recently expanding on-demand hiring and flexibly adjusting the timing and scale of recruitment."

Regarding expectations for changes in the hiring market in the second half, companies most frequently cited ‘increase in on-demand hiring’ (21.9%). This was followed by ‘expansion of experienced hires’ (20.5%), ‘increased consideration of corporate culture fit’ (15.5%), ‘intensification of preference for mid-career and new graduates’ (14.6%), and ‘expansion of hiring in new industries and new technology fields such as artificial intelligence (AI)’ (13.2%).

Seven out of ten companies (70%) said they would use on-demand hiring methods for new graduate recruitment. The biggest challenge related to new hiring was ‘difficulty in securing suitable talent’ (35.5%). Other reasons included ‘difficulty finding talent that meets required standards’ (29.0%) and ‘shortage of talent in science and technology fields such as new industries and new technologies’ (6.5%).

Regarding the most necessary policy improvements to promote new graduate hiring, the majority of companies said ‘inducing corporate investment and employment expansion through deregulation’ (37.5%). This was followed by ‘expanding incentives for companies that increase employment’ (27.5%) and ‘support for companies in growth-driving new industry sectors’ (12.5%).

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