SK hynix is expected to hand out record bonuses after posting its best-ever earnings, fueling a wave of “hynix memes” envying the company’s employees and shareholders. (Captured from the YouTube channel of Coupang Play’s variety show “SNL Korea Season 8”)
A recent analysis claiming that Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) employee turnover rate is 10 times higher than that of SK hynix (000660.KS) is a statistical illusion stemming from different measurement criteria used by the two companies, industry observers say.
According to sustainability reports from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix on Wednesday, the average turnover rate over the past five years from 2020 to 2024 stood at 2.1% for Samsung Electronics and 2.3% for SK hynix. Samsung Electronics’ rate was actually 0.2 percentage points lower than that of SK hynix.
The gap widens further when narrowed down to semiconductor personnel. The turnover rate at Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) Division, which oversees its semiconductor business, is understood to be in the 1% range. Industry watchers view this as evidence that Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor organization continues to maintain high levels of employment stability and talent retention.
The controversy erupted when a research firm recently released an analysis claiming Samsung Electronics’ turnover rate was about 10 times higher than that of SK hynix. However, industry observers pointed out that the two companies used different criteria for calculating their statistics.
In the case of Samsung Electronics, the figure was based on global standards, including all employees both at home and abroad, while SK hynix’s figure was calculated based on domestic employees only.
In particular, Samsung Electronics operates large-scale production lines in countries such as Vietnam and India. Overseas production subsidiaries have a higher proportion of production workers compared to research and development (R&D) organizations, and turnover rates tend to be relatively higher due to the characteristics of local labor markets.
For this reason, directly comparing Samsung Electronics’ overall turnover rate, which includes overseas production workers, with SK hynix’s figures focused on domestic employees may not accurately reflect the actual departure situation of core semiconductor personnel, observers note.
The industry view is that determining whether semiconductor talent is leaking out requires comparisons under the same criteria targeting core R&D and production organizations rather than figures based on the entire workforce.
“This is an industrial characteristic seen across global companies and is unrelated to a company’s employment stability or work environment,” an industry official said.