Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Top lenders fail to increase regular employment
The headquarters of KB Kookmin Bank / Courtesy of KB Kookmin Bank
By Anna J. Park
KB Kookmin Bank found to be least active in enhancing job stability
By Anna J. Park
Despite reporting record-high operating profits last year, major banks here failed to convert their numbers of irregular employees to regular employee status, while also not increasing the hiring of the latter.
According to a press release from ruling party lawmaker Park Kwang-on, Sunday, the five major banks in Korea ― KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, Hana and NongHyup ― reported aggregated total profits of 14.4 trillion won ($12.5 billion) last year, the highest since statistics started being recorded.
While these major financial institutions' operating profits have continued to record annual increases, from 6.6 trillion won in 2016 to 14.4 trillion won in 2019, the profits didn't coincide with any improvement in stable working conditions for employees.
The aggregated number of full-time employees at the five banks stood at 70,463 as of the fourth quarter of last year, a 1.2 percent drop from the previous year. Yet, the number of irregular workers showed an increase of 7.9 percent during the same period.
“Despite the record-high level annual performances, major commercial banks filled vacant positions with temporary workers, an affront to the quality of employment,” Rep. Park said. “The financial sector should begin creating quality jobs with a real sense of public responsibility."
KB Kookmin seemed to have made the least amount of efforts to enhance the quality of jobs for its employees. As of the fourth quarter last year, the number of the bank's full-time employees stood at 16,738, a 2.4 percent fall from the previous year, while the number of irregular workers increased by 28 percent.
Other banks showed a similar pattern: Hana's number of regular workers shrank by 4.1 percent and Woori's remained static, while the numbers of irregular employees were increased by 20.3 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively. Shinhan showed an increase in the number of both regular and non-regular employees last year, by a respective 1.0 percent and 13.3 percent. NongHyup was the only major lender that could be seen as enhancing the quality of jobs offered, as the number of regular staff increased by 0.5 percent and the number of non-regular workers fell by 3.8 percent.
An official from KB Kookmin attributed the particularly high increase in irregular workers at the bank to temporary large-scale employment for particular loan programs.
“At the end of last year, hundreds of short-term part-timers were employed for a couple of months to manage the loan program,” an official said during a phone interview, explaining that because of the number of workers employed for the temporary assignment, the percentage of irregular positions at the bank increased for a short time.
The official also said the reason behind the drop in the number of regular workers last year had to do with the bank's reverse-pyramid shaped human resources system.
“KB Kookmin Bank hires a similar number of new regular employees of about 400 to 500 every year, just like other major banks. However, the reason why the number of regular workers decreased last year was that since the bank merged with the former state-run Housing & Commercial Bank back in 2001, KB Kookmin Bank has more senior-level officials than other banks. Thus, the number of retiring employees is higher than other banks and this resulted in the total number of regular workers falling last year,” he explained, adding that most of the bank's positions were filled with regular staff.