Samsung promises massive bonuses of up to $338.000 to its semiconductor employees

South Korean giant Samsung Electronics has reached a provisional agreement with unions in its semiconductor division to avert a widespread strike. In exchange, employees in the chip division are expected to receive average bonuses this year estimated at around 509 million won, or nearly $338.000 per employee.

The agreement was reached after last-minute negotiations mediated by the government, as an 18-day strike was set to begin on Thursday. The plan includes the creation of a bonus fund representing up to 12% of the semiconductor division's operating profits: 10,5% paid in shares and 1,5% in cash.

The AI ​​explosion is transforming the group's profits

This surge in compensation is explained by Samsung's spectacular results in memory and AI-related chips. Global demand for components for data centers and AI infrastructure has boosted the group's profits, particularly thanks to high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI servers.

Samsung recently announced that the operating profit of its chip division increased nearly fiftyfold year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching a record level. The group is already stating that it is struggling to keep up with demand from some customers for components used in artificial intelligence.

An agreement that also causes internal tensions

The planned bonus scheme is to extend over ten years, provided that the semiconductor division maintains high levels of profitability until 2035. But this agreement is also causing criticism among some shareholders and within other branches of Samsung, where the bonus gaps are considered enormous between employees in memory and employees in loss-making divisions.

Shareholder groups have already threatened legal action against the agreement, arguing that these amounts were not validated according to the procedures stipulated by South Korean commercial law. For their part, several unions believe that Samsung is primarily seeking to avoid industrial paralysis at a time when the global race for AI chips is reaching unprecedented levels.