"Top 8 Companies by Market Cap See 21% Decrease in Youth Hiring Over 2 Years"

Jeong Il-young, Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Yonhap News

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The number of new youth hires at the top 8 companies by market capitalization decreased by 21.1% over two years.

On the 21st, Jeong Il-young, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea (Incheon Yeonsu-gu Eul), analyzed voluntary disclosure reports of the top 10 companies by market capitalization on the KOSPI market. Excluding Samsung Electronics and Samsung Biologics, which did not disclose hiring performance by age group, the number of hires under 30 at the remaining 8 companies decreased from 26,351 in 2021 to 20,793 last year.

SK Hynix, ranked 2nd by market capitalization, increased hires from 2,550 in 2021 to 2,927 in 2022, but due to sluggish business conditions, the number dropped to 228 last year. LG Energy Solution, ranked 3rd, also saw a roughly 69% decrease from 7,887 hires in 2022 to 2,451 last year. Naver, which hired 528 people in 2021, reduced its hiring to 158 last year, a 52% decrease. Hyundai Motor Company hired 16,551 people last year, but according to the lawmaker’s office, over 85% of these hires were made overseas.

It is expected that the number decreased further last year. According to a survey on new hiring plans for the second half of the year conducted by the Korea Economic Research Institute, 57.5% of the top 500 companies by sales either did not conduct hiring or did not even plan to do so due to increased management uncertainty.

In particular, political instability such as the emergency martial law on December 3rd is expected to have negatively impacted an already difficult hiring market. In response, Assemblyman Jeong plans to propose a partial amendment to the Special Tax Treatment Control Act to significantly expand the scope of integrated employment tax credits that reduce corporate and business income taxes for businesses that increase employment of youth and socially vulnerable groups.

Assemblyman Jeong expressed concern, saying, "The retail sales index recorded its worst performance since the 2003 credit card crisis, and the consumer sentiment index plunged 12.3 points in just one month due to the emergency martial law. In such difficult economic conditions, the decrease in jobs, especially youth jobs, is very worrying." He added, "Due to the impact of the Trump administration's inauguration, pressure on overseas investment in our large corporations has increased, which is expected to significantly reduce domestic jobs. As seen in Hyundai Motor Company, where overseas new hires have already far outpaced domestic hiring, this trend is likely to continue."

Assemblyman Jeong also stated, "Samsung Electronics and Samsung Biologics, which do not disclose hiring performance, are also presumed to have mainly increased overseas new hires rather than domestic ones," and urged them to disclose hiring performance through sustainability management reports like other companies. He added, "Jobs create demand and help stimulate domestic consumption, so I will push for bold legislation necessary to encourage employment."

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