Bank of Korea Recruitment Announcement... 72 New Positions Available
Financial Sector A-Match Scheduled for 'September 24'
Yoon's 'Workforce Reduction' Policy Leads to Quiet Institutional Hiring
No Private Bank Recruitment Either... Competition Heats Up
On the 5th, job seekers participating in the 'Mid-sized Companies Job Fair' held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, are looking at the recruitment bulletin board. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@
[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] The so-called ‘A Match,’ known as the peak hiring season for job seekers aiming for the financial sector, is starting a month earlier this year. The new government’s policy emphasizing workforce reduction in public institutions, combined with the declining trend of open recruitment for new employees at commercial banks, is expected to result in record-high competition rates.
According to the financial sector on the 2nd, the Bank of Korea recently announced a recruitment notice to hire 72 new employees. The application fields include economics, business administration, law, statistics, and computer science. Starting this year, applicants will be selected separately as general and regional specialists (up to 7 people). The written exam is scheduled for September 24.
Other financial public institutions are also expected to announce recruitment notices soon. To prevent overlapping acceptances among job seekers, financial public institutions try to hold their written exams on the same day. Once the Bank of Korea announces its exam date first, other institutions align their schedules accordingly. Among job seekers, these institutions are nicknamed ‘A Match.’ The A Match includes institutions with high salaries located in Seoul, such as the Financial Supervisory Service, Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, and Korea Eximbank, making them very popular among applicants.
The A Match has traditionally been held in the third week of October. Considering the interview process, this timing allows the recruitment of new employees for the following year to be completed by December. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the schedule has been moved up to September. This is because the virus spreads more easily as winter approaches, and if the written exam is postponed due to a resurgence of COVID-19, the recruitment process could become uncertain.
No Recruitment at Private Banks, and Public Institutions Are Also Quiet
As the exam schedule has been moved up, various study groups are being formed within communities of job seekers. The recruitment exams of financial public institutions are known to be more difficult than those of other institutions. Especially for the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service, a high level of major-specific understanding is required. The Bank of Korea’s essay exam asks about candidates’ values and opinions on issues such as the causes of deglobalization and the crisis of the US-China trade dispute.
The key issue is the number of hires. In the financial sector, there is a prevailing view that the number of hires in the second half of this year will decrease compared to last year. This is because President Yoon Seok-yeol has directly emphasized reform of public institutions and organizational slimming through expenditure restructuring. On June 21, at a Cabinet meeting, President Yoon pointed out, “Despite a rapid increase in debt, the organization and workforce of public institutions have significantly increased over the past five years.” For financial public institutions, which offer higher salaries compared to other public institutions, recruitment is inevitably a burden.
It is also crucial whether KDB Industrial Bank, known for its high competition rate, will conduct recruitment in the second half of this year. Last year, the Industrial Bank had the highest average annual salary among financial public institutions at 113.7 million KRW. Although it has strong industry influence, it has faced internal and external conflicts due to the current government’s plan to relocate its headquarters to Busan. If the Industrial Bank, which conducted a large-scale open recruitment of over 100 people last year, does not announce a recruitment notice, competition rates at other institutions are expected to rise further.
The shrinking scale of open recruitment for new employees at commercial banks is another factor making employment at financial public institutions more difficult. Typically, job seekers preparing for the financial sector prepare simultaneously for recruitment at private banks and financial public institutions. However, last year, the five major commercial banks?KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NH Nonghyup?hired a total of 1,667 people, of which only 1,248 were new hires. This number has decreased every year from 3,474 in 2018. This year, except for Nonghyup Bank, which openly recruited 450 people in the first half, the other banks did not conduct any recruitment.
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