Six in 10 companies said they considered gender when recruiting, a survey showed Tuesday.

The number of companies that favored men over women was double those who preferred women over men. This was based on a survey on 407 companies by job portal Saramin. It showed that 59.5 percent of them said they took an applicant’s gender into consideration.

In terms of company size, 60 percent of conglomerates considered gender when hiring, while 59.9 percent of mid and small-sized companies did so.

As for the reasons behind such considerations, 78.5 percent of the companies said job requirements were different for each gender, followed by 18.2 percent who said each gender had different strong points. Some 16.1 percent said they felt less burden in giving heavier workloads to men, while another 7.4 percent said they were trying to prevent gender imbalance. Meanwhile, 6.6 percent said that they were trying to create a flexible office culture. The respondents were allowed to give multiple reasons.

A majority, or 88.4 percent, said they gave extra points for a specific gender, while 11.6 percent said they subtracted points based on gender.

Most, or 69.8 percent, also said being male tended to be more advantageous in getting hired, compared to 30.2 percent who said women were preferred. 

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)