Samsung chip engineers eye SK Hynix as bonus gap widens

Samsung semiconductor engineers are increasingly applying to SK Hynix after the rival’s high-bandwidth memory windfall produced much larger employee bonuses. Lee, a Samsung foundry engineer, says his team lead has encouraged staff to move, and nearly his whole team applied to a July SK Hynix posting. Workers say lower rewards at Samsung’s underperforming foundry unit have weakened morale even as the AI boom lifts demand for HBM chips used in Nvidia accelerators.

Samsung agreed in May to pay 10.5% of the semiconductor division’s operating profits to employees annually for 10 years, mostly in stock vesting over three years. SK Hynix agreed last year to pay 10% of operating profits, mostly in cash. A June union survey found 81.5% of Samsung foundry employees, and nearly half of semiconductor division staff overall, wanted to move to another company in the next two years; union chief Choi Seung-ho said in April that more than 200 union members had left for SK Hynix over the past four months.

SK Hynix has gained ground after betting on HBM while Samsung downsized its HBM team in 2019. The race is intensifying as both companies plan major expansions, with SK Hynix adding 2,152 employees in the first half of 2026 and Samsung planning to hire 60,000 employees over the next five years. South Korea’s semiconductor sector will need about 304,000 workers by 2031 and faces a shortage of roughly 54,000, according to the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association.

The talent fight has also reached court: Samsung won a July injunction barring two former chip workers from joining SK Hynix for 18 months. Experts warn that losing foundry engineers could erode Samsung’s advantage in HBM4, where its in-house foundry can support advanced logic chips while SK Hynix relies on TSMC.