Among 10 medium-sized corporations, 4 (40.6%) have indicated they are unable to set new hiring plans, suggesting a decline in hiring scale for medium-sized corporations this year.
The Korea Federation of Medium Enterprises reported this on the 14th in its "2025 Employment Outlook Survey for Medium Enterprises." The survey was conducted from Nov. 18 to Dec. 2, 2024, targeting 800 medium-sized corporations.
According to the survey, even among the 59.4% of medium-sized corporations that plan to hire this year, only about half (52.6%) said they would maintain hiring levels from the previous year. The remaining corporations indicated they would reduce their hiring scale.
The medium-sized corporations that responded they would reduce new hiring cited "poor performance and decreased demand (40.7%)," "cost reduction (30.1%)," and "concerns over economic downturn (15.4%)" as the main factors.
A survey found that 91.1% of medium-sized corporations are struggling to secure staffing in various fields such as "technical and production positions (31.8%)," "research and development positions (22.9%)," "sales and marketing positions (16.2%)," and "administrative and management positions (15.0%)."
To address the staffing difficulties, they collectively noted the need for active policy support, including "expansion of employment support programs (25.7%)," "expansion of tax incentives (23.2%)," "enhancement of employment flexibility (17.5%)," "strengthening of workforce development programs (16.6%)," and "support for establishing infrastructure in industrial complexes and local corporations (9.3%)."
Lee Ho-jun, the executive vice president of the Korea Federation of Medium Enterprises, said, "To ensure that internal and external instability does not completely extinguish the spark of economic recovery, it is urgent to implement a proactive policy package aimed at enhancing the hiring capacity of medium-sized corporations, including expansion of tax support such as income tax reductions for employees and solidifying youth employment support programs."