Korean job seekers want W41.4m starting salary: survey

(123rf)

Job seekers in South Korea want to be paid 41.4 million won ($28,775) in their first year of employment, a survey showed Tuesday.

A local job search platform Incruit researched 691 people about to graduate from college in August of this year to find their ideal and minimum first-year salary. The asking salary for this year marked a slight increase from 41.36 million won in the same survey last year.

Those wanting to work at large corporations sought 43.58 million won, those targeting middle-market enterprises wanted 38.06 million won, while respondents seeking to work at small and medium-sized enterprises said they wanted 30.93 million won for their starting salaries. When asked how they set their salary expectations, 34.9 percent said they considered the size of the companies they wish to join and the overall starting salaries of the industry they wish to work in.

Some 94.8 percent of the respondents said they consider the companies' wages when applying for a job.

The biggest factor when choosing a company was the financial compensation for work (40.1 percent), followed by possibility for employee's professional growth (14.5 percent) and the welfare benefits provided by the company (8.7 percent).

Minimum asking salary dips, possibly due to slumping job market

As for the minimum starting salary they would accept to join a company, surveyed job seekers cited 36.37 million won, down from 37 million won in last year's survey.

Incruit said the job seekers willing to work for less was due to the prolonged economic slump and the subsequent freezing of the job market. According to Statistics Korea last month, employment among Koreans aged 25-29 fell by 98,000 in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the year before, the largest on-year drop since the third quarter of 2013.

The drop in employment was much steeper than the overall population decrease of that age group, which fell by 69,000 over the same period.