[2026 National Assembly Audit] "Busan Financial Public Institutions' Local Hiring Rates Below 30%... Meeting Only Statutory Requirements"

All five institutions subject to mandatory hiring requirements met the statutory threshold
Actual hiring of Busan talent was just 29.4%
Korea Housing Finance Corporation applied exemptions to 16 of 55 new hires

Although 17 years have passed since Busan was designated a financial center, five of the six financial public institutions based in the city had local talent hiring rates below 30%, according to the findings.

Busan International Finance Center (BIFC) in Munhyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Busan. The Asia Business Daily archive.

According to data submitted by six financial public institutions based in Busan to Park Hongbae, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, the average share of new hires from Busan last year was just 29.4%.

By institution, the rates were 10.3% at the Korea Exchange, 14.3% at the Korea Securities Depository, 25.5% at the Korea Housing Finance Corporation, 27.7% at the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation, 29.7% at the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, and 36.9% at the Korea Asset Management Corporation.

Five of the six institutions, excluding the Korea Exchange, are subject to mandatory local talent hiring requirements. All five met the statutory hiring rate of 30%, but the number of local hires from Busan was just 116, or 29.4% of the total 395 hires. This was because 101 of the hires made by the institutions last year were excluded from the calculation of the statutory hiring rate.

According to Park, the local talent hiring target system under the current Innovation City Act and other relevant laws allows institutions to exclude certain positions from the mandatory hiring rate calculation, including positions for which five or fewer people are being recruited. For example, even if an institution hires 37 people, if seven are exempt, the statutory hiring rate is calculated based on the remaining 30. As a result, the actual share of local hires among all new hires may fall below 30% even when an institution meets the statutory requirement.

Last year, the Korea Housing Finance Corporation excluded 16 of its 55 new hires from the calculation. Its statutory hiring rate was 30.8%, while its actual rate for hiring people from Busan was 25.5%. In particular, the corporation recruited 13 people for information technology (IT) positions, dividing them into five positions in the Seoul metropolitan area and eight outside it. The five metropolitan-area IT positions were excluded from the calculation on the grounds that they involved small-scale recruitment.

The Korea Securities Depository’s actual rate for hiring people from Busan fell 25.7 percentage points, from 40% in 2024 to 14.3% last year. The Korea Exchange’s rate was just 10.3% last year. According to Park, the Korea Exchange is not subject to mandatory local talent hiring requirements, and the Financial Services Commission’s management evaluation has no indicator for assessing its record of hiring people from Busan. By contrast, the Korea Asset Management Corporation has maintained an actual hiring rate of at least 30% for four consecutive years.

“Financial public institutions in Busan should do more than just meet the statutory requirements; they should expand actual hiring opportunities,” Park said. “The government should also transparently disclose actual local talent hiring rates and the use of exemptions, and review whether the exemption rules are being applied in line with the purpose of the system.”

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