Youth unemployment is rising to unprecedented levels, yet small and mid-sized firms still cannot find the staff. According to job portals, some 60 percent of SMEs were unable to meet their hiring targets for the first half of this year.

Saramin polled 141 small and mid-sized businesses last week, and found that 106 of them tried to hire new staff in the first half and 59.4 percent failed to fill their intended targets. And the average scores they gave to their newly hired workers was just 65 out of 100, and 71.6 percent said they suffer chronic staff shortages.

The biggest reason cited by 44.6 percent is jobseekers' bias against SMEs and failure to match the salaries and benefits offered by big conglomerates.