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Behind the rapid growth of Chinese semiconductor companies lies the practice of poaching domestic talent with high salaries and benefits. Over the past decade, dozens of former employees from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have moved to China's largest DRAM maker.

Reporter Choi Seung-hun investigates the bitter reality of this talent drain.

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"Your annual salary will double from what you make now," and "We will also support housing and your children's education." These are job offers sent by Chinese headhunters to South Korean semiconductor professionals.

An analysis of public careers on the global job-seeking platform LinkedIn revealed that at least 27 semiconductor professionals who resigned from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have joined the Chinese DRAM maker CXMT over the past 10 years.

Their average tenure at Samsung and Hynix exceeded 15 years, and 6 of them were veterans who had worked for over 20 years.

Their areas of expertise span circuit design, process integration, yield and defect analysis, and equipment and packaging—effectively covering every stage of DRAM development and mass production.

In particular, 12 individuals joined in 2018 and 2019 alone, when CXMT was building its mass-production capabilities.

Locally, they took charge of circuit design, yield analysis, building new lines, and even training Chinese engineers.

[Chang Hang-bae / Professor, Department of Industrial Security, Chung-Ang University: While acquiring tacit knowledge-related contents takes a long time and incurs massive costs, they get the opportunity to catch up on technology quickly.]

However, the average tenure at CXMT was less than 3 years, and according to public profiles, 26 out of the 27 individuals have already left the company.

Interpretations suggest this is a typical "tusa-gupeng" (discarding the hound once the hunting is done) strategy of rapidly absorbing know-how and then casting people aside.

Founded in 2016, CXMT has been rapidly expanding in size, recording the world's 4th-largest DRAM market share in the second quarter of this year.

While the government cracks down on illegal technology leaks, it maintains the stance that tracking and restricting simple overseas job changes could raise concerns over human rights violations.

Because of this, it relies solely on corporate voluntary management, such as non-compete agreements that restrict employees from moving to competitor companies for a certain period after resignation.

[Choi Su-jin / National Assembly Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs, and Startups Committee Member (People Power Party): We shouldn't just leave it up to the companies. There is a limit to protecting this through patriotism or a sense of mission toward the company.]

Experts point out that incentives such as compensation, re-employment, and research utilization support are necessary so that core talent can continue to work domestically.

(Photo courtesy of the office of Representative Choi Su-jin) (Reported by Lee Moo-jin, Video by Jeon Min-gyu, Graphics by Kim Ye-ji and Yang Ki-tae)