![\"TSMC](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/news-p.v1.20260524.627978d4d3124b9bb9fa614ca523a523_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"'Union-Free'")
TSMC logo. AP-Yonhap<\/p>\nTSMC logo. AP-Yonhap<\/p>\n
A wave of employee backlash is spreading like wildfire at TSMC after rumors emerged of bonus cuts at the chipmaker, despite its record-breaking earnings. News of hefty bonuses paid out by Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK hynix has reached Taiwan, adding fuel to worker discontent.<\/p>\n
Q1 net profit jumps 58%, but rumors of 15% bonus cut spread<\/p>\n
According to reports by Taiwanese economic daily Liberty Times Finance and Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS on Monday, the average bonus per TSMC employee based on 2025 earnings is approximately 2.64 million Taiwan dollars, or about 100 million won.<\/p>\n
The total bonus pool reaches approximately 206.1 billion Taiwan dollars (about 8 trillion won). Thanks to a structure that returns roughly 13% of retained earnings to employees as bonuses and incentives, TSMC has long been considered one of the best workplaces in Taiwan.<\/p>\n
However, even as first-quarter net profit surged 58% year-on-year to set a record high, rumors began spreading inside and outside the company that bonuses would be cut by about 15%.<\/p>\n
Analysts say the burden of capital expenditures, reaching $52 billion to $56 billion (about 76 trillion to 82 trillion won) annually as the company simultaneously builds 12 new plants in the United States, Japan, Germany and Taiwan, is squeezing the bonus pool.<\/p>\n
While the stock price has remained strong, anxiety is spreading that the share allocated to employees may shrink.<\/p>\n
“We don’t even have a union”…Internal boards filled with angry posts ahead of shareholder meeting<\/p>\n
The sense of relative deprivation among TSMC employees has grown sharper as news spread that Samsung Electronics’ union staged a strike in Korea and SK hynix paid out large bonuses. Ahead of the shareholder meeting at the Hsinchu headquarters on the 28th, internal bulletin boards and online communities have been filled with angry posts.<\/p>\n
Employees vented their frustrations, saying, “We should strike, but we don’t even have a union,” and “The bosses aren’t afraid of strikes.” Posts on the boards continued: “Employees toil anxiously every day, devoting their bodies and time to the company, but in the end, are bonuses being cut just to give more to shareholders?”<\/p>\n
One employee raised their voice, saying, “Company profits have grown, but bonuses have actually been reduced. When I joined the company, they said 13% of retained earnings would be paid to employees as bonuses. Why has the ratio been lowered?”<\/p>\n
On the TSMC page of Dcard, a workplace community known as “Taiwan’s version of Blind,” opinions also poured out: “Shouldn’t we form a union like Samsung?” and “Would striking violate the law?” TSMC has maintained a union-free management principle since its founding in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TSMC logo. AP-Yonhap A wave of employee backlash is spreading like wildfire at TSMC after rumors emerged of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[7265,18995,276,9452,241,275,18993,3246,18994],"class_list":["post-28557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-capital-expenditure","tag-chip-industry-pay","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-semiconductor-bonuses","tag-sk","tag-sk-hynix","tag-taiwan-chipmaker","tag-tsmc","tag-tsmc-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28557","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=28557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}