Samsung Workers in Their 20s Voluntarily Opt for Voluntary Retirement, Taking Hundreds of Millions of Won

Some employees born in the 1990s at Samsung Electronics are voluntarily opting for voluntary retirement, a move previously concentrated mostly among high-tenure workers.

This trend is believed to be driven by sluggish earnings in finished product businesses—such as smartphones, TVs, and home appliances—combined with substantial severance packages amounting to hundreds of millions of won.

According to industry sources, employees born in the 1990s within Samsung Electronics' Mobile Experience (MX) Business Division have recently chosen voluntary retirement and actually left the company.

Unlike the traditional demographic for voluntary retirement, these younger employees reportedly did not wait for suggestions from the human resources team; instead, they proactively inquired about the feasibility and conditions before proceeding with their departures.

Samsung Electronics has operated a voluntary retirement program on a regular basis for several years.

While the human resources team typically approached high-tenure employees first—such as those at the CL4 level equivalent to general managers—recent cases show younger workers, including those born in the 1990s, expressing their intent to take voluntary retirement first.

Significant severance compensation also appears to have influenced their decisions.

Voluntary severance pay is calculated individually based on years of service and performance evaluations. It is reported that employees at the CL2 level, traditionally equivalent to staff or assistant manager positions, can receive around 400 million won including performance-linked shares, while those at the CL4 level, equivalent to general managers, can receive around 800 million won.

The recent wave of voluntary retirements among younger employees is also intertwined with declining performance in the MX Business Division.

The MX and Networks Business Division, which has sustained Samsung Electronics' finished product business performance backed by Galaxy smartphones, posted 33.2 trillion won in revenue and an operating loss of 700 billion won in the second quarter of this year.

Although sales of the Galaxy S26 and A-series remained solid, rising prices for components such as memory significantly increased cost burdens.

Alongside the MX division, TVs and home appliances also underperformed, causing the entire Device eXperience (DX) Division, which oversees smartphones and home appliances, to record an operating loss of 800 billion won.

This marks the first time the DX Division has posted a quarterly deficit since its establishment.

Discontents among employees in other divisions regarding compensation disparities with the semiconductor division are also persisting.

Following a labor-management wage agreement last May that established special management performance bonuses exclusively for the semiconductor (DS) Division, DX Division Head Roh Tae-moon personally stepped in to soothe workers, acknowledging that they likely felt alienated and deprived.

Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video by Kim In-sun | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.