The Bank of Korea has hired 85 new employees this year, the largest number in 43 years. With the restructuring of loan systems and the push for Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the bank has significantly increased its hiring. This year, it has particularly focused on recruiting local talent, achieving the largest scale of regional personnel hiring in its history to enhance the research capabilities of local branches.
According to the Bank of Korea on the 14th, it held an entrance ceremony for 85 new employees in the comprehensive planning position (G5), who are responsible for core tasks such as investigation, research, and policy formulation, at its headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 6th. The hiring scale has increased by two compared to last year, marking the largest since 1982 when 85 employees were hired. This is an increase of 22 compared to the 63 hired in 2023.
The Bank of Korea's large-scale workforce injection follows the appointment of Governor Lee Chang-yong, who has emphasized a 'noisy Bank of Korea' while promoting various projects, including strengthening research capabilities. In his New Year’s message on the 3rd, Governor Lee presented this year's projects to be pursued, including ▲ research on structural reform measures ▲ enhancing the financial stability role of the bank’s loan system ▲ activating the risk-free benchmark rate (KOFR) ▲ introducing artificial intelligence (AI) models ▲ and testing the usability of CBDC.
The organizational restructuring conducted on the 26th of last month also supports this initiative. The Bank of Korea has carried out its first national-level restructuring since 2017, expanding from 13 divisions and 3 offices to 15 divisions and 3 offices. In this process, the Economic Statistics Division was restructured into the Economic Statistics Division 1 and Division 2, and the Financial Affairs Office was elevated to a division. The Bank of Korea explained that it expanded the organization in line with the broadening of tasks such as the loan system.
In addition to the hiring scale, it is noteworthy that the proportion of local talent recruitment has increased. Among the 85 new employees, 21 were local talents (including general and regional specialized institutional sectors), accounting for 24.7% of the total. This represents a threefold increase from 8.4% (5 out of 59) in 2020, highlighting that the Bank of Korea is enhancing its research capabilities and taking steps to revitalize local talent as a community think tank.
Local talent is selected through general and regional specialized institutional sector recruitment processes. General sector local talent refers to those chosen from the official recruitment process whose universities are located outside of Seoul. The Bank of Korea has set a recruitment target for local talent at 20% of the intended hiring number, and if the number of local talent (general sector) who pass falls short of this target, it will select up to an additional 10%. Regional specialized local talent is selected through a separate examination and is expected to work for a long period at local branches.
The number of hires in the computer science field has also increased. Among the new employees, 19 were from the computer science field (22.4%), making it the third largest group after economics with 29 (34.1%) and business management with 20 (23.5%). Compared to 5 hires in 2020, this represents a fourfold increase, influenced by the growing demand for specialized personnel in fields such as AI and CBDC.
Including general administrative staff (C3), the number of new employees this year is expected to increase further. The Bank of Korea stated in its recruitment announcement last year that it planned to hire 43 C3 employees. Compared to 22 in 2023, this represents double the amount. If the hiring of C3 staff remains at a similar level to last year, the total number of new employees is expected to exceed 120.
A Bank of Korea official noted that as the bank has recently increased its newly promoted projects like the restructuring of the loan system, the number of personnel needed for those tasks has also grown. They said, particularly for local talent, the bank actively provided recruitment information and hired the largest number in history.