Acceleration of Restructuring
It has been found that Hyundai Heavy Industries is planning to spin off six divisions, including those developing and manufacturing robots and forklifts, into subsidiaries and resume its workforce reduction program soon. The company accepted voluntary retirement applications from 3,000 workers last year and this year and is going to apply unpaid leave to every employee next year and later. In Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, one of its subsidiaries, unpaid leave already started on October 1.
A similar program is scheduled for next year in Samsung Heavy Industries, too. Samsung Heavy Industries reduced the number of its employees by approximately 1,000 last year and 1,600 in the first half of this year via voluntary retirement.
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering is planning to accept 1,000 voluntary retirement applications until the end of this month and then carry out business restructuring targeting 2,000 or so workers. Then, the number of its employees dips below 10,000 from 12,700 as of the end of June this year. In addition, unpaid leave of office workers is to start in January next year.
In the meantime, the South Korean government affirmed on October 13 that these South Korean shipbuilders’ restructuring programs will cover no R&D personnel at all. “We already told these companies and their creditors not to include R&D personnel in their restructuring programs,” it said.
According to the Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association, a total of 1,091 core technicians left the three companies in 2015 whereas the number stood at 287 in 2013 and 340 in 2014. “Such experts’ movement to rival companies in China and so on is equivalent to the outflow of very important engineering and business data,” said an industry source, adding, “Brain drain must be prevented by any means even in the event of corporate restructuring.”