As per the latest report by BusinessKorea, Samsung has reduced its workforce in China by more than 70%. It now stands at around 10,000. Eight years ago, Samsung Electronics’ Chinese workforce peaked at 63,316. It gradually decreased to 60,000 in 2014, below 50,000 in 2015, and below 40,000 in 2017, due to multiple issues, including the THAAD issue.
The figure fell below 30,000 in 2018 and 2019 and fell to 20,000 in 2021. The trade war between the US and China played a significant role in workforce reduction over the past couple of years. Moreover, according to analysts, the shrinkage of the workforce in China is a result of the movement of production bases from China to other countries, preferably Vietnam and India.
On the other hand, the number of employees in the company’s homeland of South Korea has seen a jump of 20% over the past five years. This is all thanks to the expansion of semiconductor factories in the country.
Samsung’s decision to shift its production units out of the country was influenced by several major contributing factors, including Chinese regulations and discrimination by Chinese authorities, the COVID-19 outbreak, an increase in labor costs, local-demand-based policies, and price hikes.
Samsung has already been downsizing its presence in China and has closed multiple factories in the past few years. Currently, only a home appliance plant, a semiconductor back-end processing plant in Suizhou, and a memory semiconductor plant in Xian are being operated by Samsung in China.
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