By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
You don't have to explain the difficult economic situation and tough hiring market to Park Min-hee, owner of a decent-sized flower shop and delivery service just outside of Seoul. She knows firsthand as she recently let go two staff members and plans to operate tightly until her business recovers.
``It's better to be busy and short-staffed than to have to worry about an overwhelming payroll,'' says Park, who currently relies on eight workers, including herself, to multi-task a wide range of duties.
For the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), holding off on hiring plans is a wise decision during a murky economy.
A new survey of 255 SMEs showed that less than half (42.4 percent) of them will look for new employees in the second half of this year. This is down approximately 30 percent from last year, and the decline carries more significance considering that fall and winter are traditionally active hiring seasons.
The first half of this year was also not much better, as they managed to hire little more than 1,100 people, a drop of 37 compared to last year.
``External circumstances tend to have a stronger impact on financially weak smaller firms,'' says Lee Gwang-suk, president of Incruit, an online recruiter that conducted the poll. He added, however, that SMEs would alter their recruitment plans once the economy shows signs of recovering.
However, big companies are on a different schedule, with more than 70 percent of 102 firms saying they will seek new employees in the latter half of this year.
These large firms, which are ranked within the top 10 in terms of revenue, already hired approximately 9,400 people from January to June, up 2 percent from last year.
The country's top businesses have promised since last year that they will open up more employment opportunities, as long as the government offers them solid deregulatory measures to do better business.
The five most representative business lobbies last week launched a campaign to encourage companies to hire 10 percent more employees than they originally planned to.