Newsmakers

Samsung is paying 78,000 chip workers a $340,000 bonus each. Not their salary. The bonus. The total bill is $26.6 billion, which equals 1.4% of South Korea's entire economy, going to less than 0.3% of the country's workforce.

The average Korean earns roughly $32,000 a year. So each Samsung chip worker is pocketing about a decade of normal pay in one go. Memory-division employees may collect closer to $396,000.

The cash comes straight out of Samsung's chip profits, which are projected to hit 330 trillion won (around $218 billion) this year. It's seven times higher than just a few years ago, driven by the AI boom. The deal gives workers 12% of those profits: 10.5% as company stock, the other 1.5% in cash. And not just this year. The setup repeats every year for the next decade, as long as profit targets get hit.

The move follows rival SK Hynix Inc., which last year also agreed a bonus payout. The actual bonus at Samsung will depend heavily on the company’s earnings and chip demand. Samsung declined to comment.

Under the tentative deal, which still requires approval by union members, Samsung agreed to distribute 10.5% of profit as a bonus in stock, and a further 1.5% in cash. The new bonus program will continue every year for 10 years, as long as certain profit targets are met.

The bonuses highlight the growing strategic importance of semiconductor workers. Samsung and SK Hynix, alongside Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have become indispensable pillars of the global AI buildout, producing the top-end chips and memory that power data centers from California to the Middle East. Any disruption to production now carries geopolitical and economic consequences far beyond Korea.

The payout is poised for early 2027, with employees allowed to sell a third of the shares immediately and the remainder in installments over the following two years.

“As Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are now competing for global talents, competitive compensation packages are well warranted,” said Bumki Son, an economist at Barclays.

Son warned however, that due to the rigidity of the Korean labor market, the compensation packages risked being a “free option for the workers – where they get protected on the downturn and get paid during the upcycle.”

The AI rally has also dramatically boosted the fortunes of Samsung’s Lee family. Jay Y Lee is South Korea’s richest person with a fortune of about $32 billion. The combined wealth of his family, which is Asia’s third-richest, climbed to about $45.5 billion as of March, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

For decades, landing a job at Samsung or SK Hynix has been one of the ultimate prizes for South Korean students, who endure some of the world’s most intense academic competition in pursuit of stable, prestigious careers.

The extraordinary payouts now flowing to employees are being seen by many in South Korea as a rare vindication of that system, with gains from the global AI boom rewarding technicians and factory workers whose labor underpins the industry.