Samsung laid off the highest number of employees in the first half of this year

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We first started hearing reports about a year ago that Samsung is downsizing its workforce in a bid to cut down on costs. Samsung said back then that it was actually advising “average workers with mediocre performance” to leave the company with a sizable compensation. Samsung is still at it. 54 of the 109 listed companies that earned more than 1 trillion won ($880,000) in the first half of this year in South Korea downsized their workforce and Samsung Group laid off the highest number of employees.

Samsung Group is the conglomerate's umbrella under which all of its 50-plus affiliates operate. Its battery-making affiliate Samsung SDI announced last year that it would lay off around 12,000 senior employees by 2016. Samsung Electronics had 95,420 employees in the first half of this year, down 3,579 workers from the same time last year. Nearly 2,000 workers were laid off from Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung SDI as well.

This is all part of Samsung's efforts to restructure its conglomerate and focus more on its core businesses, a leaner organization is certainly one of the ways to go about it.

Adnan Farooqui - Executive Editor

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First Samsung device: SGH-E900

Adnan Farooqui is a long-term writer at SamMobile. Based in Pakistan, his interests include technology, finance, Swiss watches and Formula 1. His tendency to write long posts betrays his inclination to being a man of few words.