A new survey finds that around 200 leading South Korean companies have yet to decide or have no plans to hire new staff in the first half of the year. 

Online job portal Job Korea said Wednesday that it surveyed 321 of the nation’s top 500 businesses about their recruitment plans for the first half of the year and found only 35-point-eight percent, or 115 firms, have plans to hire new employees.

Out of the surveyed, some 41 percent said they have no recruitment plans while around 23 percent said they have not decided on when and how many new staff they will recruit. 

Eighty-one companies that plan to take on new staff in the first half of the year and have finalized recruitment plans are expected to hire two-thousand-625 people. That’s down seven-point-three percent from a similar survey last year.