After President Lee Jae-myung asked corporations to create jobs for young people, major conglomerates announced hiring plans, but they are not disclosing the specific scale of youth hiring. This is seen as because it has become difficult to establish concrete hiring plans as external and internal headwinds persist, including a worsening trade environment due to delays in Korea-U.S. tariff talks and a string of pro-labor policies and bills.
18th, major groups including Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor, LG, POSCO, Hanwha, and HD Hyundai simultaneously unveiled plans to hire new employees. It came two days after President Lee said at a Cabinet meeting on 16th, "I ask that corporations join forces with the government to help get over the hump of the youth employment crunch."
Major groups said they would hire up to tens of thousands of people over the next few years. Samsung said 60,000 over five years, POSCO 15,000 within five years, and HD Hyundai 10,000 over five years. SK and Hyundai Motor will each hire 8,000 and 8,200 new employees this year, and LG will hire up to 4,000 this year.
Most of the corporations that announced hiring plans did not disclose by how much more they would hire this year compared with last year or specific numbers. They cited the difficulty of tallying because, although they used to hire through open recruitment, they shifted to rolling recruitment. Hyundai Motor Group abolished its regular open recruitment for college graduates in 2019 and introduced job-by-job rolling recruitment, and other corporations adopted this approach.
Some are reluctant to disclose because neither the total number of hires nor the "youth employment" mentioned by the president is increasing. A large-conglomerate official said, "Maintaining similar hiring numbers every year is a considerable investment. While we may say we will hire tens of thousands over three to five years, how many we hire and retain each year has to take the business environment into account." The point is that because the business environment changes frequently, they have no choice but to set hiring plans conservatively.
Even if corporations increase new hiring, youth employment can decrease if they increase experienced hires. New hiring includes both experienced and entry-level workers, and lately corporations are tending to expand experienced hiring. According to a survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in the first half of this year, only 2.6% of corporate job postings recruited entry-level only. Most sought experienced workers (82%) only, or hired both experienced and entry-level (15.4%) simultaneously.
In business circles, there is criticism that job creation will be possible only if support measures that help strengthen corporate competitiveness are also put in place, given the flood of pro-labor bills such as the Yellow Envelope Act and amendments to the Commercial Act, as well as pro-labor policies. A business community official said, "It does not add up to tell us to increase only new hiring when the corporate management environment is deteriorating."