{"id":61391,"date":"2026-06-23T02:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/61391\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T02:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:32:15","slug":"samsung-chip-staff-on-academic-leave-to-receive-50-of-special-bonus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/61391\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung Chip Staff on Academic Leave to Receive 50% of Special Bonus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SamsungSamsung Electronics’ headquarters in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. Yonhap News<\/p>\n

Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) semiconductor (DS) division has decided to pay 50% of its special management performance bonus to employees currently on academic leave. The measure is a remedial step modeled on a competitor’s practice, introduced as a growing number of staff sought to abandon their studies midway to collect bonuses worth hundreds of millions of won. However, the decision has also drawn internal complaints, as it breaks a company-wide principle by granting an exception to a single division.<\/p>\n

According to industry sources Wednesday, Samsung Electronics’ DS division recently informed employees on academic leave that they would receive 50% of their original division’s “special management performance bonus.”<\/p>\n

The measure applies only to the special management performance bonus. Existing bonus programs, such as the Overall Performance Incentive (OPI) and the Target Achievement Incentive (TAI), are not included among the payment targets. Because employees on academic leave are originally excluded from active duty, Samsung’s principle had been to exclude them from bonus payments. The company is known to have crafted the new scheme by referring to the case of SK hynix, which also pays a portion of bonuses to those on academic leave.<\/p>\n

The rule change is a follow-up measure tied to the introduction of the special management performance bonus, which was recently finalized through a labor-management agreement. Samsung Electronics’ labor and management agreed to fix 10.5% of business performance as the funding source for the bonus. Amid this year’s semiconductor boom, projections have emerged that memory division employees will receive bonuses of up to 600 million won per person, including the existing OPI.<\/p>\n

As the scale of compensation grew, the company saw a series of applications and inquiries from staff seeking to halt their overseas studies and return to active duty. This is because the bonus amount exceeds the benefits gained from the academic program. The company is understood to have chosen the compromise of paying half the special management performance bonus to prevent key talent from abandoning their studies midway.<\/p>\n

However, when the news spread, a backlash emerged among employees in other divisions, including the Device eXperience (DX) division responsible for smartphones and home appliances. They point out that recognizing an exception to internal rules only for the DS division creates a sense of discord between divisions and runs counter to fairness. “Setting aside the bonus gap arising from performance differences between divisions, changing even personnel rules in favor of a specific division does not align with the ‘One Samsung’ principle,” an industry official said.<\/p>\n

\"InteriorInterior view of semiconductor Line 15 at Samsung Electronics’ Hwaseong plant in Gyeonggi Province. Samsung Electronics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. Yonhap News Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) semiconductor (DS) division has decided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[34580,6942,34582,34581,127,276,15326,275,17304],"class_list":["post-61391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-academic-leave","tag-dx-division","tag-employee-bonus","tag-one-samsung","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-semiconductor-division","tag-sk-hynix","tag-special-management-performance-bonus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61391","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=61391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}