Hiring demand in South Korea's IT sector is expanding on the back of advances in artificial intelligence, but job seekers' fears of being displaced are growing instead. Even as IT job postings rose more than 50% over the past year, hiring remains centered on experienced candidates, deepening anxiety among entry-level applicants.
Job postings in the IT and internet category totaled 1,386 in September, up 50.7% from 920 in the same month a year earlier, according to Catch, a recruitment platform run by Jinhaksa, on the 20th. Entry-level postings climbed 54.0% to 542 from 352, while openings for experienced hires rose 47.4% to 1,035 from 702. Although entry-level postings grew at a faster rate, the absolute increase in experienced-hire openings, at 333, was 1.8 times the gain of 190 in entry-level roles. Experienced hires accounted for 74.7% of all postings, nearly double the 39.1% share for entry-level positions. The shares add up to more than 100% because a single posting can seek both entry-level and experienced candidates.
The preference for experienced candidates was also pronounced in permanent positions. Postings for permanent roles rose 27.4% to 912 from 716 over the same period. Entry-level postings in that group increased 49.3% to 315 from 211, while those for experienced hires rose 28.0% to 745 from 582. Experienced hires made up 81.7% of all permanent-role postings.
A sense of crisis over job displacement from the spread of AI also ran high. Catch analyzed 117 respondents hoping to work in the IT and internet field out of 1,298 job seekers surveyed, and found that 63.2% agreed that AI could replace their own work. That was 5.9 percentage points higher than the 57.3% recorded among all job seekers. Asked whether they had considered switching their major or job function in preparation for advances in AI, 34.2% said they had, and 25.6% said they were already doing so.
Views on how AI affects their job prospects were mixed. Some 45.3% said their confidence about finding a job had fallen since AI began advancing, outnumbering the 35.1% who said it had risen. Even so, the share reporting greater confidence was 13.2 percentage points higher than the 21.9% among all job seekers, indicating that concern about AI taking jobs coexists with hopes for new opportunities.
An official at Catch said the role of entry-level staff could shrink as AI automates simple coding and repetitive development tasks, but the importance of workers who use AI to solve complex problems or design systems could grow. "Going forward, the competitiveness of IT job seekers may depend less on basic development skills than on their ability to use AI and their expertise," the official said.