Roles at major Korean companies proving increasingly elusive

Visitors look around the Global Talent Fair, a job fair targeting foreigners, held at Coex in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, in August. [NEWS1]

Landing a job at major companies is getting more difficult in Korea, with a handful of exceptions in the EV batteries, AI and shipbuilding sectors.

When President Yoon Suk Yeol came into office in May last year, the country’s 10 largest conglomerates promised 380,000 new jobs by 2027 — a goal that seems to be growing out of reach, mostly due to the persisting macroeconomic uncertainties and lagging performance.

SK Innovation on Wednesday said that the oil refiner, as well as its subsidiaries, will start the seasonal “open recruitment” for entry-level employees.

SK hynix, the chipmaker, also plans to announce its recruitment plan this month, along with other major conglomerates such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Posco and Lotte.

Many large companies in Korea hire lower-level employees through seasonal open recruitment periods, twice a year in general, that traditionally target less experienced, recent college graduates.

But this season is expected to be a tough one for job seekers, as most of the companies are seemingly cutting the number of new recruits.

As of August, 78.8 percent of 104 large companies finalized their recruitment plans, which is down 1.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Incruit, a recruitment service company. This is the first time that the figure has seen a decrease since 2020.

Among the large companies, 9.6 percent answered that they are not planning to hire new employees in the latter half of the year.

The result of the survey indicates that an increasing number of companies are dragging their feet in deciding the size of new recruits due to rising uncertainties in the market.

The size of new recruits is also considered disappointing, compared to what the companies have promised.

Samsung announced last year that its companies will create 80,000 new jobs through 2027, which translates to 16,000 new jobs every year.

Samsung Electronics, the biggest of all Samsung companies, saw a net increase in the number of employees by 6,166 in the first half compared to the year prior. Yet the increase is considered smaller than the company’s average in the past.

SK companies also said it would hire 50,000 new employees by 2027. But SK Innovation, which is the parent company of most of SK’s smaller energy subsidiaries, is planning for only a small number of new recruits for the season.

Hyundai Motor Group promised to hire an average of 10,000 new employees every year, but Hyundai reported a net increase of 847 employees, and Kia 64 employees, in the first half of the year.

Out of the 10 major conglomerates in Korea, none except for HD Hyundai — which owns HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering — disclosed the number of new recruits over the past year.

HD Hyundai companies hired 1,000 new employees during the past one-year period.

Moreover, only 4.9 percent of the major conglomerates said that they are planning to hire interns in the second half, which is one-third of last year’s 15.3 percent.

“Companies are reluctant to scale up hiring due to high uncertainties in the economy,” said Lee Sang-ho, head of the economic research team at the Federation of Korean Industries.

BY CHOI EUN-KYUNG [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]