ISSUE BRIEFING

Applying to 100 Places with No Response: The Urgent Need to Expand the Fair Recruitment Procedure Act Amid 'Recruitment Without Rejection Notices'

A 29-year-old job seeker who applied to roughly 100 companies this year received application-passing notifications from only 3, while the rest closed their job postings without disclosing any results. Statistics from the National Statistics Office show that youth employment declined for the 45th consecutive month in July, the youth unemployment rate rose to 6.8% for the sharpest increase in 5 years and 6 months, and an FKI survey indicated the document-screening pass rate dropped to 19.4%. Although Article 10 of the Fair Recruitment Procedure Act mandates the notification of hiring decisions, Article 10 itself lacks direct grounds for fines or corrective orders, meaning violations have been handled mainly through improvement recommendations, and workplaces with fewer than 30 employees are exempt. A full revision bill for the Fair Recruitment Act was scrapped in the 21st National Assembly, and while a partial revision bill introducing fines has been proposed in the 22nd National Assembly, it remains unconfirmed as of July 2026. Proposed directions for revision include securing the effectiveness of the notification obligation under Article 10, establishing new obligations to notify applicants of results and suspensions at each screening stage which are missing from current laws, and expanding the scope of application.