The nation's leading conglomerates plan to expand new hires this year to 136,000, with high school graduates accounting for 41,000 of the new workers. They are also eyeing a record W120.4 trillion (US$1=1,119) in total investments for 2012, up 9.6 percent on-year, the Federation of Korean Industries said on Thursday.

The hiring target is up 3.6 percent from last year, while the quota of new hires involving high school graduates has grown more than 10 percent over the same period.

In order to help baby boomers retiring from big business conglomerates maintain stable incomes, the FKI plans to help them find work at small and mid-sized businesses.

The FKI said in a statement, "The Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, which goes into effect this month, is expected to create 350,000 jobs over the next 10 years, and businesses will try their best to use the FTA to create more jobs."