Production Facilities Relocated to Vietnam, India
The number of Samsung Electronics' employees in China reached 60,000 eight years ago but has been reduced to the 10,000 range, according to the company's report released on July 6.
The number of the company's employees in Korea increased by 20 percent over the past five years due to the expansion of semiconductor factories in Korea.
Analysts say that Korean companies are gradually moving their production bases to Vietnam and India due to various regulations and discriminations by Chinese authorities and unit price hikes.
According to Samsung Electronics’ 2022 sustainability report, as of the end of last year, 17,820 people were on the payroll of the company's subsidiaries in China. This is a 70.46 percent drop from the peak of 63,316 in 2013. The company's workforce in China fell to below 60,000 in 2014, below 50,000 in 2015, and below 40,000 in 2016 and 2017 when a THAAD issue broke out.
The figure fell further following the outbreak of trade disputes between the United States and China, staying below 30,000 in 2018 and 2019, and below 20,000 in 2020 and 2021.
During this period, Samsung Electronics has been downsizing its factories in China. It stopped operating its communication plant in Shenzhen in May 2018 and its smartphone plant in Tianjin in December of that year. In 2019, it shut down its plant in Huizhou, which was its last smartphone production base in China. In July 2020, the company closed down Suizhou PC production facilities. These plants and production facilities were moved to Vietnam and India. Currently, Samsung Electronics’ production bases in China are only three – a home appliance plant and a semiconductor back-end processing plant in Suizhou and a memory semiconductor plant in Xian.
Samsung was hurt by high-rate tariffs following the U.S.-China trade disputes, domestic demand-oriented policies, and rising labor costs. A tough COVID-19 blockade policy hindered Samsung’s stable corporate activities in China. The Korean tech giant is expected to phase out investments in semiconductor and home appliance production facilities still remaining in China