![\"Cho](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/news-p.v1.20260512.2487e158bc874e25ac80c0f01be53114_P3.jpg\"\/ "\\"Samsung")
Cho Hong-jong, Professor of Economics at Dankook University<\/p>\nCho Hong-jong, Professor of Economics at Dankook University<\/p>\n
The global semiconductor market is riding the artificial intelligence (AI) wave into a second gold rush. Thanks to this, Korea’s memory chip industry is posting its best-ever performance. The AI boom will not last forever, and the bubble may eventually burst. Yet at this critical juncture, when every moment should be spent preparing for the future rather than savoring current success, the union’s strike notice is infuriating the public.<\/p>\n
The display of force \u2014 halting operations for bonus payouts that small business owners cannot even imagine \u2014 has become a source of deprivation and social discord for many. The United States, Japan, and Taiwan are pouring in astronomical subsidies to isolate Korea’s competitiveness, while China is closing in on us with all its national resources mobilized. At a desperate moment when every minute and second counts, if Samsung Electronics’ union itself triggers a strike that could shut off the engine of growth, overseas rivals will seize the golden opportunity to overtake Korea’s semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n
Companies and industries that stagnate and grow complacent get overtaken. Korean industry has already been caught up with by China in every sector. Automobiles, shipbuilding, and batteries may appear to be doing well, but their global market share has already reached a level where catching up with China is becoming difficult.<\/p>\n
The only field left is semiconductors. Even the chip industry cannot maintain its competitiveness without properly applying manufacturing AI. China’s memory chip latecomers such as CXMT and YMTC are pouring in manpower and waging an all-out battle on technology development. If production disruptions hit Samsung Electronics, China will gain the perfect opportunity to overtake Samsung and seize the top spot in semiconductors.<\/p>\n
China is pouring vast fiscal resources into research and development (R&D), piling on subsidies and even erecting trade barriers in its pursuit. It has even declared it will produce the advanced lithography equipment of the Netherlands’ ASML on its own, and is poaching Korean talent. While China’s top minds are sharpening their blades day and night, we are getting drunk on a one-off success and trying to throw a feast by cutting open the belly of the goose that lays the golden eggs. A strike carried out during an intense semiconductor hegemony war between nations can only undermine the national interest and deliver windfall gains to rival countries.<\/p>\n
Appropriate compensation for Samsung Electronics’ workers is, of course, necessary. But the current success and profits are like a mirage that could vanish at any moment. The 45 trillion won in compensation demanded by the union would erode the R&D and facility investment funds that Samsung Electronics must pour in to secure leadership in AI chips.<\/p>\n
Today’s boom is the fruit of the dedication and bold investment of past generations. If the current generation exhausts all of that fruit on one-off bonuses, where will the jobs and foundations for our juniors remain? This runs counter to intergenerational justice and is an act that destroys the nation’s sustainability.<\/p>\n
The majority of the public is showing a negative view of this strike notice. A labor movement that fails to win social support ultimately becomes an isolated island. For high-wage workers earning an average of more than 150 million won a year to halt a key national industry for hundreds of millions of won in bonuses goes beyond the bounds of social acceptance. What is needed now is not a show of force driven by group egoism, but a magnanimous decision and leadership of coexistence for the future of Korea’s semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n
The government must mediate the gap between management and workers so that Samsung Electronics can return to normalcy as quickly as possible. If the current strike crisis is left unattended, the “super gap” advantage will collapse overnight, and the consequences will be devastating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cho Hong-jong, Professor of Economics at Dankook University The global semiconductor market is riding the artificial intelligence (AI)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5319,10596,645,10594,10598,10597,127,276,2673,10595],"class_list":{"0":"post-14282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-samsung-electronics","8":"tag-ai-semiconductors","9":"tag-china-chip-competition","10":"tag-cxmt","11":"tag-korea-semiconductor-industry","12":"tag-labor-union-bonus-demand","13":"tag-memory-chip-market","14":"tag-samsung","15":"tag-samsung-electronics","16":"tag-samsung-electronics-strike","17":"tag-ymtc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}