Korean job postings grow longer, more detailed in AI era: JobKorea
Summary
JobKorea reported Tuesday that Korean job postings have grown longer and more detailed as companies specify the skills they seek amid the spread of AI. From 2021 through the third quarter of this year, the share of postings with preferred qualifications nearly doubled, and the median posting length rose 79 percent. AI-related postings also increased sharply. JobKorea attributed the changes to a shift from large-scale annual recruitment toward year-round hiring for specific roles.
Key Facts
- Postings with a separate preferred qualifications section rose from 14.5 percent in 2021 to 28.3 percent this year, while those listing required qualifications increased from 18.6 percent to 27.3 percent.
- Since 2025, preferred qualifications have appeared more often in postings than required qualifications.
- The median posting length increased from 483 Korean characters, including spaces, in 2021 to 864 characters this year; the average rose from 817 to 1,077 characters.
- Postings mentioning AI-related terms or tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini jumped 198 percent from January to September compared with the same period last year, and their share of all postings rose from 0.37 percent in 2024 to 1.92 percent this year.
- Among AI-related postings, 50.8 percent had a separate preferred qualifications section, compared with the overall rate of 28.3 percent this year.
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Job postings in Korea have become longer and more detailed over the past five years as companies spell out the specific skills they want amid the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), according to an analysis released Tuesday by job portal JobKorea.
The online recruitment platform, operated by Worxphere, analyzed the text of job postings published on its site from 2021 through the third quarter of this year.
The share of postings that included a separate section on preferred qualifications nearly doubled from 14.5 percent in 2021 to 28.3 percent this year. Postings listing required qualifications rose from 18.6 percent to 27.3 percent over the same period. Since 2025, preferred qualifications have appeared more often than required ones.
Postings also grew longer. The median length rose 79 percent from 483 Korean characters, including spaces, in 2021 to 864 characters this year, while the average increased 32 percent from 817 to 1,077 characters.
Postings mentioning AI skills are rising sharply. Those containing keywords such as “AI utilization,” “generative” and “prompt,” or the names of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, jumped 198 percent from January to September compared with the same period last year. Their share of all postings rose from 0.37 percent in 2024 to 1.92 percent this year.
Of these AI-related postings, 50.8 percent included a separate preferred qualifications section, well above the overall rate.
JobKorea attributed the trend to a decline in large-scale annual open recruitment, long a hallmark of hiring at major Korean companies, and a shift toward year-round hiring for specific roles. As AI quickly changes the skills needed even for the same job, companies are describing the talent they want from the posting stage, it said.
“Companies have to describe job duties and preferred conditions in more detail, while it has become more important for job seekers to show their skills based on those standards,” a JobKorea official said.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.
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