Samsung Electronics Union to Strike, Bonus Update and Semiconductor Industry Trends

TapTechNews July 4th news, due to significant differences in the labor negotiation (the salary negotiation has been carried out since January), the largest union under Samsung Electronics - the National Samsung Electronics Union announced that it has obtained the legal right to strike and will carry out the first strike in the 55-year history of Samsung Electronics on June 7th.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Samsung Electronics announced the TAI (Target Achievement Incentive) bonus payment rate for the first half of this year through the internal network and will be officially distributed on the second day of the strike (July 8th), among which the performance bonus equivalent to 75% of the monthly basic salary can be obtained at the highest.

TAI is one of the performance-based incentive systems of Samsung Electronics. According to the performance of the first half and the second half of each year, on the basis of comprehensive assessment of the division and business department, a bonus of up to 100% of the monthly basic salary is distributed.

It is introduced that the bonus amount of the equipment solutions (DS) department of Samsung's semiconductor business that has been announced is 37.5-75% of the basic monthly salary, including 75% for the memory department, 37.5% for the wafer foundry department, 37.5% for the system LSI department, and 75% for the semiconductor research center.

In fact, from 2015 to the first half of 2022, the TAI of the DS division can reach 100%, but due to the decline in performance since the second half of 2022, it was directly halved to 50% that year.

Then in 2023, the semiconductor industry encountered an unprecedented cold current. Samsung Electronics had an operating loss of about 15 trillion won (TapTechNews note: currently about 78.69 billion yuan), and the memory department, the foundry department and the system LSI department all had only 25% of the income in the first half of the year.

After the long-term cumulative loss, the TAI of Samsung's memory department was cut to 12.5% again in the second half of last year, and the TAI of the foundry department and the system LSI department was 0, which is also the lowest year in the eight years since the implementation of the Samsung TAI system.

Now it seems that due to the recovery of this year's semiconductor industry, the performance of Samsung's DS department has improved, so the amount of performance pay has been re-raised. According to Samsung's financial report, the DS department achieved sales of 23.14 trillion won (currently about 121.392 billion yuan) and operating profit of 1.91 trillion won (currently about 10.02 billion yuan) in the first quarter of this year, which is the first profit achieved by this department after five quarters.

In addition to the DS department, Samsung's Device Experience (DX) department announced that the video display (VD) and mobile experience (MX) departments will receive 50% and 75% of the monthly basic salary respectively, mainly due to the strong sales of the new TV and Galaxy S series smartphones, while the household appliance department with poor performance can only receive 25% of the bonus.

In addition, the department responsible for producing large-sized panels for TV in Samsung Display Company will receive 50% of the monthly basic salary, while the department and headquarters that produce small and medium-sized panels for IT will receive 75% bonus.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics only gave an OPI of 1% of the annual salary last year, and this year it set the maximum limit of TAI to 100%. Samsung SDI treats all the same, and the medium and lar ge battery department, the small battery department and the electronic materials department will all receive 75% bonus.