Companies plan to hire more employees this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic shows signs of abating.  
 
According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Wednesday, businesses with one or more workers plan to hire 650-thousand workers between April and September, up 50-point-eight percent from the same period of last year.
 
The increase is attributed to the base effect from the reduced hiring last year amid the pandemic.
 
The manufacturing industry has the largest hiring plan, aiming to add 174-thousand workers, followed by the accommodation and restaurant businesses at 79-thousand new workers and the wholesale and retail sector at 76-thousand.
 
Businesses with one or more employees hired one million-128-thousand workers in the first three months of the year, up 17-point-two percent on-year. But they had actually planned to hire one million-303-thousand workers, meaning that 174-thousand jobs remained unfilled in the first quarter.
 
The figure represents a whopping 70-point-two percent increase from the same period of last year, indicating the deepening imbalance between supply and demand in the labor market.
 
The findings are based on a survey on some 72-thousand businesses with one or more employees.