A recent survey of the top 500 companies in South Korea revealed that 57.5 percent of these corporations have either not established plans to recruit new employees in the latter half of the year or do not intend to hire at all. Specifically, 40 percent of the companies stated that they have not yet formulated plans to hire college graduates, while 17.5 percent expressed that they are not actively seeking new recruits. The survey, which was conducted on August 5-19 by local pollster Research and Research on behalf of the Federation of Korean Industries, also indicated a slight increase in the percentage of companies with recruitment plans compared to the same period last year, but a rise in the percentage of companies not looking to hire new employees out of college. The Federation of Korean Industries mentioned that companies have been increasingly opting for flexible adjustments to the timing and scale of their recruitment, rather than adhering to a fixed number of hires within a specific period. Additionally, reasons cited by companies for not hiring new recruits included reducing spending in response to potential management uncertainties or reduced profits, a prolonged economic downturn, and difficulties in finding potential employees with the necessary skills for their roles. Another survey by the Korea Enterprises Federation in January also revealed that around 57.5 percent of the top 500 companies planned to hire a similar number of college graduates as the previous year, with only 14.7 percent intending to hire more new employees.