Samsung Chip Workers To Get $340,000 Average Bonus In AI Boom (qz.com)
- Reference: 0183319202
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/05/22/060223/samsung-chip-workers-to-get-340000-average-bonus-in-ai-boom
- Source link: https://qz.com/samsung-chip-workers-bonus-ai-profits-052126
> The agreement, subject to a union ratification vote running May 22 through May 27, calls for Samsung to direct 10.5% of operating profit into stock bonuses along with a separate 1.5% cash component, according to Bloomberg. The program runs for 10 years, contingent on the company meeting profit thresholds. One-third of the stock award can be liquidated right away, with the rest parceled out in installments across the next two years, Bloomberg reported. The first payout is expected in early 2027.
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> Not all workers will fare equally. As an illustration, [3]Reuters cited a union source estimating that someone in the memory chip unit earning an 80-million-won base salary could take home roughly 626 million won in total bonuses this year. By comparison, workers at SK Hynix stand to collect upward of 700 million won should their employer post annual profit of 250 trillion won, Reuters calculated. Unlike at Samsung, SK Hynix employees are not limited to stock payouts and may instead opt for cash, Reuters reported.
[1] https://qz.com/samsung-chip-workers-bonus-ai-profits-052126
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-21/samsung-chip-workers-to-get-average-340-000-bonus-in-ai-boom
[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/samsungs-deal-with-union-hailed-victory-bonuses-less-generous-than-sk-hynixs-2026-05-21/
Average is doing a lot of work there (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't be the only one that noticed. Still, their unions got them the money. And it's still a lot of money. Just a reminder that divided we beg, United we Bargain.
Re: (Score:2)
> I can't be the only one that noticed. Still, their unions got them the money. And it's still a lot of money. Just a reminder that divided we beg, United we Bargain.
I was thinking the same thing on the average. I'm assuming executives will get the biggest share of that, while the common workers will get, what, say 10k? Not that that's anything to sneeze at, but let's not pretend the average low-level person is getting 340k.
Re: Average is doing a lot of work there (Score:2)
That seems unlikely. Executives aren't generally covered by a union. Maybe Korean unions are different. But the whole point of a union is to operate adversarially against the executives.
Re: (Score:2)
> I was thinking the same thing on the average. I'm assuming executives will get the biggest share of that, while the common workers will get, what, say 10k? Not that that's anything to sneeze at, but let's not pretend the average low-level person is getting 340k.
No, it's likely the union members get a big chunk of it.
The reason they went on strike is SK Hynix (also Korean) gave the excess profits to their workers - to the tune of about half a million dollars each. Samsung executives refused to do same when S
Re: (Score:2)
My first thought was, "So three CEOs got $10B each and everyone else gets a $5 gift card and some pizza."
Of course, the bonuses are in the form of stocks that only a third of which can be sold right away, so they're not actually paying the workers a bonus just the promise of a bonus with the caveat that the bonus value is tied to the ephemeral value of the company months or years from now and not on the actual labor that was already performed or value already created.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah because the executives were the ones on strike? No, this was a bonus for people working in the chip plants, a pre-agreed bonus for 607% of annual salary for all people working in the memory division. This was largely done because of the insane number of people jumping ship to SK Hynix.
Imagine This Happening in the USA (Score:5, Funny)
(Please mod Funny)
Scam (Score:3)
When the AI bubble collapses, their stock will absolutely crash. "One-third of the stock award can be liquidated right away" - Yeah, I would do that. Honestly, they should have paid them in DDR5.
Re: Scam (Score:4, Interesting)
And during the downturn, they'll be accruing even more low priced shares that will soar on recovery. It's not even close to a scam. It's a measured compromise that ensures long term value for the union workers.
Re: (Score:3)
As if it isn't obvious how much it'll crash...
This is 10.5% of operating profits.
Person making 80-million-won is expected to take home an additional 626-million-won. ... 80/yr -> 626 bonus
Meanwhile, Samsung still has 89.5% of those operating profits. For that example above, that's 5,335.9-million-won they're keeping in profit.
That's how much they're overcharging for RAM right now. They can give out bonuses that are 7.8 times base salary, and that bonus is only 1/10th of the profit.
Put another way, they c
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on how much the crash corrects to the pre-AI days. Samsung's stock has increased by a factor of 6x since early last year on the back of this "only 10.5% of operating profits".