Incruit’s survey of 873 companies — including 102 large corporations, 122 mid-sized firms and 649 small and medium-sized enterprises — found that 84.4 percent of electronics and semiconductor companies plan to hire new university graduates this year, the highest among all industries. The survey was conducted between Jan. 5 and 27 through email questionnaires and telephone interviews with HR managers.
The figure marks a 23.8 percentage-point increase from a year earlier, reflecting strong business conditions driven by surging demand for high-value chips used in artificial intelligence servers and data centers and competition over chipmaking engineers.
Not just memory makers like Micron, U.S. big-tech names including Nvidia, Google and Tesla are aggressively chasing Korean engineers due to Korea's edge in chipmaking.
Nvidia, the world’s leading supplier of AI accelerators and the largest buyer of HBM chips, is currently advertising senior memory system engineer positions at its Santa Clara headquarters, with base salaries of up to $356,500. The roles require more than a decade of experience in DRAM design and deep knowledge of HBM, a profile that closely matches engineers at Korea’s two dominant memory producers.
HBM-dominant SK hynix’s revenue and operating income rose 47 percent and 101 percent to $68 billion and $33 billion, respectively. Its annual operating profit reached a record 47.2 trillion won, surpassing Samsung Electronics’ 43.6 trillion won.
Google and Broadcom, which jointly develop tensor processing units for Google’s AI infrastructure, are also hiring HBM engineers in Silicon Valley. Google has posted openings for silicon validation engineers focused on characterizing HBM performance, while Broadcom is seeking specialists in design-for-test verification across HBM, DDR and high-speed interface technologies.
Tesla has taken a more direct approach in Korea. Tesla Korea posted a job listing on Feb. 15 for AI chip design engineers as part of a project to develop proprietary AI processors for mass production. The recruitment drive was amplified by Chief Executive Elon Musk, who reposted the opening on his X account earlier this week.
Industry analysts say the global competition for Korean chip engineers reflects the strategic importance of memory technology in the AI race.
Reviving construction sector
Following semiconductors, the construction, civil engineering, real estate and leasing sector ranked second in Incruit’s survey, with 83.3 percent of firms planning to hire, up sharply from 57.9 percent a year earlier.
The IT, telecommunications and gaming sector followed at 80.5 percent.
Media, advertising, education and publishing, and healthcare and pharmaceuticals also recorded relatively high hiring intentions, each approaching or exceeding 75 percent.
Underscoring the prolonged slump in consumption, travel, accommodation and aviation sector posted the lowest hiring rate at 56.7 percent. Apparel, footwear and other manufacturing firms followed at 63.3 percent, while distribution and logistics companies stood at 64.0 percent.
“These sectors are closely tied to household consumption and the broader real economy, which remains under pressure,” Incruit said.
In terms of year-on-year changes, construction-related industries and electronics and semiconductors showed the largest gains in hiring plans, rising by 25.4 and 23.8 percentage points, respectively.Transportation recorded the steepest decline, with hiring intentions falling 4.5 percentage points to 64.3 percent. Automobile and auto parts manufacturers also saw a drop of 4.1 points to 66.7 percent.
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