Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul / Yonhap
Samsung Electronics is still feeling the aftershocks of its labor dispute, with tensions resurfacing as union members vote on a tentative wage agreement. Semiconductor researchers have bristled at performance bonuses worth hundreds of millions of won, arguing that the payouts were still smaller than those received by employees in other divisions.
Meanwhile, new government data shows that full-time science and engineering Ph.D.s newly hired by Korea’s public research institutes earned an average starting salary of just 48 million won (around $32,000). The finding has raised concerns of a drastic — and increasingly entrenched — pay gap among science and engineering professionals.
Monday's tentative agreement between Samsung Electronics and its labor unions showed that an employee at the company’s semiconductor research lab with an annual salary of 100 million won would receive a total of 600 million won before taxes this year. The amount includes 50 million won under the existing overall performance incentive system, and an additional 440 million won in special bonuses secured through the recent negotiations.
Still, rumblings of discontent continue inside the company. Employees with similar salaries in the memory business, which belongs to the same semiconductor-focused Device Solutions division, are expected to receive about 100 million won more than their counterparts at the research lab.
