Samsung lays off 3% employees at US chip subsidiary

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics has laid off 3 per cent of employees at its US semiconductor subsidiary -- Device Solutions Americas (DSA).

Citing sources, BusinessKorea said that Samsung DSA notified all of its employees about the job cuts due to uncertain economic conditions.

The total number of employees at Samsung DSA is 1,200, of which 30 employees have been removed.

A global economic recession led to an overall reduction in demand for semiconductors, which led to Samsung Electronics DSA reducing its personnel by an unusual percentage, said the report.

Moreover, the report mentioned that, in the previous quarter, i.e., Q4 of 2022, the tech giant recorded $204 million in operating profit in the semiconductor division.

Based on the numbers of Q4 2021, the profit declined by a staggering 96.9 per cent, which is expected to continue in the current quarter.

However, Samsung isn't the only semiconductor company that has taken this path of layoffs.

Chip maker Intel reported $14 billion in sales and a $700 million operating loss in Q4 2022, its worst business performance in the last 50 years.

To compensate for this, the company began laying off thousands of employees in Q1 2023.