Major South Korean retailer Shinsegae Group will hire over 20,000 workers from the second half of this year through next year, the group said Tuesday.

“It’s time to work together to resolve the worst youth unemployment rate since the 1997 Asian financial crisis,” Shinsegae vice chairman Chung Yong-jin said.

Under “Vision 2023,” a management plan unveiled by Shinsegae last year, the company pledged to recruit more than 10,000 employees every year for 10 years.

This year, Shinsegae plans to employ a total of 14,500 new workers, up 7.4 percent from 13,500 in 2014.

The retailer’s move is in line with the government’s push to tackle the country’s deteriorating unemployment.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of unemployed young Koreans, which stood at 330,000 in 2013, rose to 380,000 last year and reached 410,000 in the first half of this year. This is the second consecutive year for the youth unemployment rate to reach a post-2000 peak.

Step up hiring efforts, Shinsegae will hold a job fair with its subcontractors in Seoul on Sept. 15.

A total of 125 firms will participate in the recruitment event, including the group’s 10 major units, which includes E-Mart, Shinsegae Food and Starbucks Korea, as well as over 115 subcontractors, such as Hermes Korea and CheongWoo Confectionary.

“It is important that the job fair leads to substantive employment,” Chung said.

Recently, some large conglomerates, such as Samsung, SK Group and Hyundai Motor, sparked public backlash as their large-scale employment schemes turned out to have overstated the actual number of new jobs by including internship programs.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)