Hand writing characters is very important, regardless of your goal. Incidentally, learning Chinese or any language to find a job can one of the strongest motivating factors, so I recommend not listening to those who say it's not enough. 

Hand writing reinforces all the other skills, and significantly helps with the memorization of characters. It's actually more efficient to learn Chinese this way. If you skip it, you think you'll be saving time, but you actually spend more time reviewing and such than you would if you had just written in the first place.

I'm not saying you should spend exactly the same amount of time writing as you do with your other skills, but you should definitely not skip it. As a bare minimum, memorize how to write a character when you first learn it, and periodically review it with something like an SRS, flashcards, lists, etc. 

Contrary to popular belief, learning traditional characters takes no longer than simplified. When you know the radicals, the stroke count is insignificant. 

For your first year, 1000 to 2000 characters is a lot. Do you really use and reinforce them enough, by not just writing, but reading, listening and conversing? It's a bad idea to let your character count go beyond your other skills, because they are easy to forget.

Where does 30% comes from?
Did you read it somewhere?

Practicing in writing is important to find the balance hidden in each character and in each set of characters. Who knows... you could also find a personal balance.

If I can suggest you: don't study chinese just to find a job.

It's a not so simple language.

Try to find the beauty in each feature: calligraphy; reading; writing; sounds; images and history that speaks in each character (some of them bring a millenary history).
Probably you will learn it easily and faster!

Buon cammino!

I personally believe handwriting is probably the most difficult part in Chinese learning, maybe in other language as well. But yes finding a job in China or facing with chinese customers will definitely improve your speaking. Keep practising and you will get it through.

加油↖(^ω^)↗ 

for chinese people,handwriting is very important.most people think good handwriting show you have a good education.

Thank you all for your reply. I probably left out some important details. I have been studying chinese for over a Year, and I probably know how to hand write between 1000-2000 characters, but I spend most of my time praticing writing when learning chinese, and even then, it is sooo easy for me to forget how to write it if I take like a couple of weeks off. I probably spend 30percent of my time writing, 20 percent reading, 30 percent listening, and 20 percent speaking, but this writing is ripping me apart... especially since it is Traditional characters taht I am learning.