(Bloomberg) — Samsung Electronics Co. will distribute about 40 trillion won ($26.6 billion) to chip employees as a bonus for this year after the company struck a last-minute deal with labor unions to avert a strike.
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Samsung employs 78,000 people in its semiconductors division. While bonus levels will vary, workers stand to get 513 million won on average, equivalent to $340,000, according to Bloomberg calculations based on proposed terms and estimates for 2026 operating profit. Samsung employees earned 158 million won on average in 2025, according to a company filing in March.
Other estimates, including by Yonhap News, calculated that employees in the booming memory division may be in line for individual payouts of around 600 million won. Samsung doesn’t disclose the exact number of employees in different semiconductor divisions.
The move follows rival SK Hynix Inc., which last year also agreed a bonus payout. The actual bonus at Samsung will depend heavily on the company’s earnings and chip demand. Samsung declined to comment.
Under the tentative deal, which still requires approval by union members, Samsung agreed to distribute 10.5% of profit as a bonus in stock, and a further 1.5% in cash. The new bonus program will continue every year for 10 years, as long as certain profit targets are met. Analysts estimate Samsung’s 2026 operating profit will grow seven-fold to about 333 trillion won.
The bonuses highlight the growing strategic importance of semiconductor workers. Samsung and SK Hynix, alongside Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have become indispensable pillars of the global AI buildout, producing the top-end chips and memory that power data centers from California to the Middle East. Any disruption to production now carries geopolitical and economic consequences far beyond Korea.
The payout is poised for early 2027, with employees allowed to sell a third of the shares immediately and the remainder in installments over the following two years.
“As Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are now competing for global talents, competitive compensation packages are well warranted,” said Bumki Son, an economist at Barclays.
Son warned however, that due to the rigidity of the Korean labor market, the compensation packages risked being a “free option for the workers – where they get protected on the downturn and get paid during the upcycle.”
The AI rally has also dramatically boosted the fortunes of Samsung’s Lee family. Jay Y Lee is South Korea’s richest person with a fortune of about $32 billion. The combined wealth of his family, which is Asia’s third-richest, climbed to about $45.5 billion as of March, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
For decades, landing a job at Samsung or SK Hynix has been one of the ultimate prizes for South Korean students, who endure some of the world’s most intense academic competition in pursuit of stable, prestigious careers.
The extraordinary payouts now flowing to employees are being seen by many in South Korea as a rare vindication of that system, with gains from the global AI boom rewarding technicians and factory workers whose labor underpins the industry.
–With assistance from Anders Melin and Jaehyun Eom.
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