With the number of companies establishing recruitment plans for the second half of this year increasing by about 14% compared to the same period last year, vitality is expected to return to the job market.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) announced on the 29th that this result was derived from the '2026 Survey on Large Enterprises' Second Half New Recruitment Plans' (121 responding companies) conducted by research agency Research & Research targeting the top 500 companies by sales.

Regarding recruitment for the second half of this year, 51.2% of the responding companies answered that they have "established a plan," marking a 14%p increase from the same period last year. Companies that responded "undecided" accounted for 28.1%, and those with "no plan" accounted for 20.7%, decreasing by 9.9%p and 4.1%p respectively.

Among the companies that established recruitment plans, 50% answered that they would "maintain a similar level" of recruitment scale compared to the previous year, 25.8% answered "reduce," and 24.2% answered "increase." Compared to the second half of last year, the proportion of companies planning to reduce recruitment decreased by 12%p.

Looking by industry, the proportion of companies with recruitment plans was high in the order of wholesale and retail (71.5%), construction and civil engineering (61.5%), and distribution and logistics (55.5%). The FKI explained, "The higher proportion of companies establishing second half recruitment plans this year and the lower proportion of companies without recruitment plans suggest that job market conditions have improved somewhat compared to last year." It added, "However, as the economic recovery remains relatively slow in domestic-related sectors such as wholesale, retail, and distribution, as well as the construction sector, companies continue to take a cautious approach to new hiring."

Regarding recruitment methods, among companies that established recruitment plans for the second half of this year, the proportion of companies answering "rolling recruitment only" decreased by 9.9%p to 14.5%, and those answering "open recruitment only" decreased by 7.2%p to 30.6%. On the other hand, companies responding with "parallel use of open and rolling recruitment" increased by 17.1%p to 54.9%.

The FKI explained, "Considering that companies cited organizational fit as the most important evaluation factor in new recruitment, the recent expansion of open recruitment reflects the demand to select talent by considering not only individual job competencies but also collaboration and adaptability within the organization."

Meanwhile, as policy tasks for promoting new college graduate employment, companies most frequently cited "inducing corporate investment and employment expansion through deregulation" (30.6%). This was followed by "expanding tax and financial incentives for employment-increasing companies" (21.5%), "enhancing flexibility in employment-related systems such as hiring, deployment, and working hours" (19.8%), and "improving the dual structure of the labor market biased toward regular workers and unionized labor" (8.3%).

Lee Sang-ho, head of the FKI Economic Division, emphasized, "It is positive that the new recruitment movement of major corporations in the second half of this year has expanded somewhat compared to last year." He added, "As a high proportion of companies in some industries still have not fixed their recruitment plans or have no plans, it is necessary to create conditions for companies to secure investment and employment capacity through tax support, such as expanding the integrated employment tax credit, and regulatory relief."

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