More than half of Korean companies have hiring plans for this year

[Photo by Yonhap]

One out of two companies in South Korea plans to hire employees this year, a survey showed Friday.

According to a survey conducted by job platform Job Korea among 313 corporate human resource managers, 58.8 percent of the companies intend to hire workers this year. Twenty-two percent of the companies said they have not finalized their hiring plans while 19.2 percent have no plans at all.

Among the companies with hiring plans, 61.4 percent stated that they would hire both entry-level and experienced employees.

The most common job positions for hiring were production and on-site jobs at 20.7 percent, followed by domestic sales at 19.6 percent, sales management at 18.5 percent, marketing at 17.9 percent, human resources and accounting at 17.4 percent, and research and development at 16.8 percent.

Regarding expectations for this year’s job market compared to last year, 46.6 percent of the surveyed companies anticipated it to be similar to the previous year.

More than 30 percent of the surveyed anticipated a worse job market than last year while 20.8 percent said it will improve this year.