Samsung's new bonus plan has created an elite class of workers in its memory division, enabling these workers to receive a compensation that is orders of magnitude higher than what the going rate is for other divisions.
And, quite predictably, this yawning pay gap is now eliciting a range of adverse reactions, from Samsung Mobile workers going to work while dressed in an all-black mourning attire, to employees within its foundry division overwhelmingly admitting their openness to depart for greener pastures elsewhere.
A union-led survey finds that 81.5% of respondents in Samsung's Foundry division now have an express intention of leaving their current job
As per the results of a recent survey conducted by the Samsung-based arm of the United Enterprise Labor Union, which is the South Korean conglomerate's biggest union by numbers, 81.5 percent of the 8,297 respondents within Samsung's Foundry division have expressed an intention to leave.
Do note that within the context of this survey, a 62 percent affirmative response threshold is typically considered 'very high.' Critically, the Foundry division's dissatisfaction appears to be the highest among the seven organizations that make up Samsung's DS arm.
As such, 75.4 percent of workers in Samsung LSI are willing to switch jobs, while 60.6 percent of the workers are willing to do so in the Semiconductor R&D Center. This rate, however, falls to just 32.7 percent in the memory division.
As we reported back in May, Samsung's agreement with its unionized workers will now see its memory workers take home a special performance bonus that is equal to 10.5 percent of the tech behemoth's annual operating profits, provided that such profits exceed 200 trillion won from 2026 to 2028 and 100 trillion won from 2029 to 2035.
In fact, based on the current expectations that Samsung will earn an operating profit of around 300 trillion won this year, each memory-focused employee stands to take home around 600 million won (~$400,000) in bonuses this year alone.
The situation, however, is less than ideal for Samsung's employees working in other divisions. For instance, Samsung Mobile employees will take home just 6 million won (~$4,000) in bonuses this year, which is around 100x less than what semiconductor employees stand to earn!
Meanwhile, Kim Yong-kwan, the President and Head of Business Strategy at Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) division, reportedly declared at a town hall meeting on July 03 that the division would meet the market's expectations vis-à-vis its operating profit for this year. Do note that analysts currently expect Samsung to report an annual operating profit of around 300 trillion won or ~$200 billion.
Critically, the executive then went on to crow that the profit of Samsung DS in 2026 would surpass the cumulative profit that it earned over the 40 years or so since the company entered the semiconductor business!
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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