Less than 40% of firms plan to hire this spring

Local conglomerates are projected to hire fewer employees in the first half of this year, according to a survey conducted by local job portal Job Korea.

Biannual recruitment in the first half of the year is expected to fall by 8.7 percent on year, according to the survey Monday. The survey was conducted on 162 companies among the top 500 firms by sales.

Among survey participants, 39.5 percent, or 64 companies, confirmed that they would hold a biannual recruitment drive in the first half of this year, while 17.3 percent remained unsure whether to hire new employees. As many as 43.2 percent of companies said they had no plans to hire in the next few months.

The total number of jobs that the 64 companies are planning to offer total 6,222, which is 8.7 percent less than the 6,814 jobs offered during the same period last year.

Around 55.5 percent of officials from human resources departments said they expect hiring levels in the January-June period to be similar to last year, while 39 percent expect a gloomier outlook for hiring. Just 5.5 percent projected an increase in employment.

The survey reflects the growing number of firms that are ditching the longstanding tradition of biannual recruitment drives and hiring new talent year round. Hyundai Motor and its sister company Kia Motors, for example, announced the decision to ditch biannual recruitment earlier this month, saying that the custom no longer works in the rapidly changing auto market. It is the first conglomerate to make such a decision.

The survey also showed that so-called blind hiring, in which personal information unrelated to job requirements is excluded from applications, is expected to become more prevalent. Some 64 percent of companies planning to hire in the first half of the year intend to practice blind hiring, a 30 percentage point increase from the second half of last year.

Lotte Group and CJ Group were among the companies that confirmed they would hire in the first half of this year. Lotte Group said it will begin the hiring process in the second week of March, while CJ Group’s hiring period will be in either early or mid-March.

On a separate note, Asiana Airlines announced it will increase its hiring by 28 percent this year. The airliner is planning to hire a total of 776 employees in an effort to increase flight safety with the addition of new aircraft this year.

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]