Samsung-college graduate recruitment

SEOUL, March 13 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Group, South Korea's top family-owned conglomerate, on Wednesday announced an annual employment plan to hire 9,000 college graduates this year despite ongoing economic uncertainties.

The group, which operates more than 80 affiliates including top smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co., plans to keep its college graduate headcount from last year, the group said in a press release.

Of the total, 5 percent of the fresh hiring positions will be allocated to low-income earners while 35 percent will be set aside for graduates from provincial universities, it added.

Meanwhile, Samsung said it plans to continue its policy of hiring high school graduates and expand recruitment of the handicapped without elaborating on details.

Last year, the group announced a plan to employ a record 26,000 fresh hires and introduced a group-wide recruitment policy for such applicants in line with the government's efforts to thaw job market conditions for those without college diplomas.

Meanwhile, as part of efforts to strengthen its software clout, Samsung announced a new policy designed to hire liberal arts majors and train them as software engineers.

Under the "Samsung Convergence Software Academy" program, Samsung will recruit 200 university graduates this year and offer them a six-month training course on software engineering.

The training will include an introductory course as well as a more advanced sessions on embedded development and semiconductor processing.

"Currently, 70-80 percent of Samsung's college graduate employees have engineering backgrounds. We hope to open doors for liberal arts majors as the importance of convergence is growing," group chief spokesman Rhee In-yong told reporters.

The first batch of the trainees will be dispatched to Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDS Co., according to the group.

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