SK hynix opens production-worker recruitment with average W800m bonus in sight

SK hynix has launched a recruitment drive for production-line workers in the second half of this year, with applicants expected to flood in on hopes of lucrative performance bonuses.

The company has dropped its previous educational requirement — which had limited applicants to high school and junior college graduates — while expectations of bonuses worth hundreds of millions of won, fueled by the semiconductor boom, are set to make competition fierce.

SK hynix posted a job listing for "November Talent Highway maintenance and operator" positions on its recruitment website on Tuesday, according to Yonhap. Applications close Sunday.

Among production-line roles, maintenance workers handle equipment upkeep and line operations related to semiconductor manufacturing, while operators carry out quality testing and defect inspections.

The positions are open to candidates available to begin work in February next year, with postings at sites in Icheon and Yongin in Gyeonggi Province and Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province.

The educational requirement that had long restricted production-line hiring to high school or junior college graduates was abolished in June. The change broadens the applicant pool and is expected to intensify competition further.

Successful candidates will be selected through a document screening, followed by a written test — the SKCT (SK Competency Test) — in November and interviews in December.

Earlier this year, SK hynix revamped its experienced-hire recruitment brand from "Monthly Hynix Talent" to "Monthly Highway" and expanded its rolling recruitment system to cover production-line workers as well as office staff, with the aim of securing semiconductor talent without restrictions on timing or channel.

SK hynix has recently topped job-seekers' lists of "companies of interest" and "most desired employers" on major recruitment platforms, reflecting strong appeal among job hunters.

Analysts say the prospect of exceptional performance bonuses, driven by the semiconductor industry's recovery, has been a decisive factor in that popularity.

Securities analysts project SK hynix will post a record operating profit of around 284 trillion won ($211 billion) this year, riding a semiconductor super-cycle.

If that forecast materializes, the profit-sharing pool — known as excess profit distribution, or PS, funded at 10 percent of operating profit — would reach 28 trillion won for payment in early next year.

Differences exist by rank and seniority, but a simple calculation dividing that sum among the roughly 35,000 employees works out to an average pretax bonus of about 800 million won per person.

husn7@heraldcorp.com