South Korea’s top five banks hire 30% fewer new recruits last year

[Photo by MK DB]

South Korea’s five major commercial banks hired about 30 percent fewer new employees last year compared with 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic while the average annual salary of these banks continued to rise, surpassing 100 million won.

The five banks - KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, KEB Hana Bank and NH Nonghyup Bank - recruited a total of 1,662 new employees last year, down 27.8 percent from 2,301 in 2019.

Before the pandemic, their combined tally had been steadily increasing from 2,153 in 2017 to 3,121 in 2018 before declining to 2,301 in 2019 and to 1,077 in 2020.

Since then, it increased to 1,248 in 2021 and 1,662 in 2022, but it was still far from the pre-pandemic level. This is due to the decrease in the number of bank branches due to the prolonged pandemic as well as accelerated digitalization and automation.

Woori Bank saw its new employees fall by more than half to 310 last year from 739 in 2019 and KEB Hana Bank’s new employees fell to 85 from 130 over the same period. Only NH Nonghyup Bank increased the number of its new employees to 560 last year from 530 in 2019.

However, for KB and Shinhan, the number of employees hired last year, including both new and experienced employees, was higher than in previous years. KB hired 508 new and experienced employees last year, and Shinhan hired 547, up slightly from 497 and 533 in 2019, respectively.