Brokerage employment hits 17-year high amid KOSPI rally

Seoul's main financial district in Yeouido / gettyimagesbank

Brokerage employment in Korea has climbed to its highest level in 17 years, nearing the 40,000 mark as the KOSPI's record-setting rally boosts hiring demand across the industry, data showed Wednesday.

Data from the Financial Supervisory Service, the country's financial watchdog, showed that the number of employees at securities firms totaled 39,514 at the end of last year.

The figure includes staff employed at overseas branches of Korean brokerages as well as domestic branches of foreign securities firms.

The latest tally marks the industry's largest workforce since September 2008, when employment stood at 40,341 during the early stages of the global financial crisis.

Data from the Bank of Korea showed a similar trend. According to the central bank's Economic Statistics System, securities firms employed 39,711 people as of the end of the first quarter, up 181 from the previous quarter and 819 from a year earlier.

It was the highest level since the central bank began compiling the data series in the third quarter of 2014.

By firm, Mirae Asset Securities remained the industry's largest employer with 3,475 staff members, up 64 from a year earlier. NH Investment & Securities increased its headcount by 10 to 3,135, while Korea Investment & Securities added 49 employees to reach 2,978.

The hiring trend is widely attributed to the sustained bull run in domestic equities, with the benchmark KOSPI surging from the 2,000 range to above 8,000 in less than a year.

Central bank data showed brokerage employment rose by 292 in the fourth quarter of last year, when the KOSPI first crossed the 4,000-point level. That marked the largest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2022, when securities firms added 827 employees during the COVID-19-era trading boom.

Despite rising employment, physical branch networks continued to shrink as investors increasingly turned to mobile trading platforms. The number of domestic brokerage branches fell to 710 at the end of the first quarter, down 32 from a year earlier.

Banks, meanwhile, moved in the opposite direction.

Domestic banks employed 113,230 people at the end of last year, down 652 from a year earlier.

Given that nearly 2,400 employees left the country's five major lenders — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH NongHyup — through voluntary retirement programs late last year and early this year, bank employment is expected to have declined further in the first quarter.