Samsung’s AI chip payday has turned into a row over who gets the cash from the boom.
Samsung Electronics is stuck in a scrap with workers over how to share the spoils from the AI-driven semiconductor surge. Unions are threatening a strike unless the chipmaker improves wages and bonuses.
Two Samsung unions want the company to pay workers 15 per cent of each division’s operating profit. They want a seven per cent wage rise and have threatened an 18-day walkout from 21 May if Samsung refuses.
The dispute comes as semiconductor demand rockets, especially for the advanced high-bandwidth memory chips needed by AI data centres. On Wednesday, Samsung Electronics’ market value hit more than $1 trillion after its shares jumped more than 14 per cent to a record high.
First-quarter net profit hit 47.2tn won (€27.7bn, $32.6bn), almost six times higher than a year earlier. Almost all that cash came from the semiconductor division, which explains why staff fancy a slice.
Last month, 40,000 workers rallied outside Samsung’s factory complex in Pyeongtaek, 70km south of Seoul. A strike could give global supply chains a proper kicking while memory chip supply is already tight.
AI outfits racing to sign long-term chip contracts have pushed up prices for other customers, including consumer electronics makers.
Sungkyunkwan University professor Kwon Seok-joon estimated an 18-day walkout would cost Samsung between 10tn won (€5.9bn) and 17tn won (€10bn) in direct losses.
Samsung is trying to build its contract chipmaking business and become a trusted HBM4 supplier to Nvidia. Any stoppage would hit 1,700 smaller companies that supply Samsung.
The Bank of Korea reckons about half the country’s first-quarter GDP growth of 1.7 per cent came from chipmaking. Samsung Electronics and rival SK Hynix make up more than 40 per cent of the Kospi index’s value.
Management and unions are close to agreeing the bonus amount. A person familiar with the talks said Samsung had offered about 13 per cent of operating profit.
The awkward bit is whether those bonuses become company rules and get paid every year.
National Samsung Electronics Union acting chair Woo Ha-kyung said negotiations had collapsed because management made a one-off offer. The unions want bonuses written into contracts instead.
Samsung said it would “continue to make efforts to reach an agreement with the union”.
Samsung’s mess contrasts with SK Hynix, another South Korean chip winner from the AI boom. Hynix has agreed to set aside 10 per cent of its operating profit for workers for the next decade. For SK Hynix workers, that could be a tidy little earner.
Broker Meritz Securities forecasts SK Hynix will make 250tn won (€146.8bn) in operating profit this year. A tenth of that split among 35,000 staff would mean an average payout of about 700mn won (€411,000, about $475,000) each.
