"Completely Different from Five Years Ago"... The Companies Job Seekers Most Want to Work For

SK hynix and Samsung Electronics Top Job Seekers’ Preferred Companies
Booming Semiconductor Industry and Massive Bonuses Drive Popularity

The companies that job seekers most want to work for are SK hynix and Samsung Electronics.

Yonhap News Agency

According to the "2026 Corporate Preference Report" published by JobKorea, an AI and data-based human resources (HR) tech platform, after analyzing survey responses and behavioral data from 3,287 job seekers as of June 9, the most preferred company for immediate employment was SK hynix, followed by Samsung Electronics in second place.

Next in the top ten were Naver, Toss, Hyundai Motor, Amorepacific, Google, Kakao, Nexon, and Hybe.

Job seekers cited salary and performance bonuses (32%), employee benefits (15%), and potential for professional growth (13%) as the main reasons for their preferences.

Five years ago, IT and platform companies such as Kakao ranked at the top of the list, but this year, semiconductor and manufacturing companies have climbed the rankings, resulting in changes in the preferred companies.

JobKorea explained, "Job seekers' interest, which had previously been centered on IT and platform companies, has shifted to manufacturing, including semiconductors, due to expectations for growth prospects and stability."

The record-breaking performance of SK hynix and Samsung Electronics, driven by the boom in AI semiconductors, and their generous compensation systems are seen as reasons for their popularity among job seekers. Last year, SK hynix posted sales of 97.1467 trillion won and an operating profit of 47.2063 trillion won, setting the highest results since its founding. The company operates an excess profit-sharing (PS) system, which allocates 10% of operating profit as the resource for bonuses. Earlier this year, it was reported that employees with an annual salary of around 100 million won received a bonus of approximately 150 million won.

Samsung Electronics also maintained its existing excess profit incentive (OPI) program in accordance with labor-management agreements and introduced a "special management performance bonus" for the Device Solutions (DS) division. The special management performance bonus allocates 10.5% of business performance as the resource for bonuses, with no upper limit set.

Based on Samsung Electronics’ projected operating profit of 300 trillion won this year, 31.5 trillion won will be set aside for bonuses. Approximately 78,000 employees in the Device Solutions (DS) division will each receive about 160 million won. Including additional allocations by business unit, the memory division will receive an extra 380 million won per person, and the common organization will receive an extra 270 million won, bringing the total bonus for memory division employees to as much as 600 million won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.