51% of Large Companies Plan to Hire New Employees in the Second Half of This Year

[Financial News] More than half of large companies are expected to hire new college graduates in the second half of this year. The share has increased by 14 percentage points from the second half of last year, indicating that opportunities for new college graduates are likely to expand.
According to a survey conducted on the 29th by Research & Research at the request of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), 51.2% of the 500 largest companies by sales that responded to the survey—121 companies in total—said they had established plans to hire new college graduates in the second half of this year. This was a 14.0-percentage-point increase from the 37.2% recorded in the second half of last year.
Companies whose hiring plans were 'undecided' accounted for 28.1%, down 9.9 percentage points, while those with 'no plans' accounted for 20.7%, down 4.1 percentage points.
Among the companies that had established hiring plans, 50.0% said they would hire on a scale similar to last year, 25.8% planned to reduce hiring, and 24.2% planned to increase it.
Compared with the second half of last year, the share of companies maintaining their hiring levels rose by 12.2 percentage points, while the share reducing hiring fell by 12.0 percentage points. The share increasing hiring declined by 0.2 percentage points.
However, differences among industries were significant.
In wholesale and retail (71.5%), construction and civil engineering (61.5%), and distribution and logistics (55.5%), more than half of the companies had either undecided hiring plans or no plans to hire.
FKI analyzed the findings, saying, "Companies in domestic-demand-related industries such as wholesale and retail, as well as in the construction sector, remain cautious about new hiring as the economic recovery in these areas has been relatively slow."
Among the companies with hiring plans, 54.9% said they would combine public recruitment with rolling recruitment, up 17.1 percentage points from the second half of last year.
The share of companies planning to use rolling recruitment only fell by 9.9 percentage points to 14.5%, while the share planning to use public recruitment only declined by 7.2 percentage points to 30.6%.
Organizational fit was the most frequently cited factor in evaluating new college graduates, at 23.4%. Job experience and general job competencies followed at 18.4% each.
The top policy priorities for increasing new college-graduate hiring were 'encouraging greater corporate investment and employment through deregulation' (30.6%), 'expanding tax and financial incentives for companies that increase employment' (21.5%), and 'increasing the flexibility of employment-related systems, including hiring, placement, and working hours' (19.8%).
Sangho Rhee, head of FKI's Economic Affairs Division, stressed, "Since some industries still have a high proportion of companies that have not finalized hiring plans or have no plans to hire, it is necessary to create conditions that enable companies to expand their capacity for investment and employment through tax support, including an expansion of the integrated employment tax credit, as well as deregulation."

[email protected] Park So-hyun Reporter