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Samsung is reportedly cutting up to 30% of its overseas staff at some divisions, including some jobs at a Texas chip manufacturing plant after continued delays to production.
The South Korean firm has instructed subsidiaries worldwide to reduce sales and marketing staff by about 15% and the administrative staff by up to 30%.
The plan will be implemented by the end of the year and will impact jobs across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa.
It is not yet clear exactly how many people will be let go and which countries and business units would be most affected.
In a statement, Samsung said workforce adjustments conducted at some overseas operations were routine, and aimed at improving efficiency. It said there are no specific targets for the plans, adding that they are not impacting its production staff.
In April 2024, Samsung received $6.4 billion in direct funding under the US Chips and Science Act to support the company’s planned $40bn investment in a semiconductor cluster split between two cities in central Texas: Taylor and Austin.
However, in June 2024 it was reported that the company was delaying construction at its Taylor unit in order to upgrade the foundry process at the facility meaning production delays until 2026.
Samsung employed a total of 267,800 people as of the end of 2023, and more than half, or 147,000 employees, are based overseas, according to its latest sustainability report.
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Manufacturing and development accounted for most of those jobs and sales and marketing staff number around 25,100, while 27,800 people worked in other roles.
The job cuts come as Samsung grapples with mounting pressure on its key units. The chip business has been slow to recover from a severe downturn in the industry that drove its profit to a 15-year low last year.
In May, Samsung replaced the head of its semiconductor division in a bid to catch up with smaller rivals in supplying high-end memory chips used in artificial intelligence chipsets.
In the premium smartphone market, Samsung is facing stiff competition from Apple and China's Huawei, while it has long lagged behind TSMC in contract chip manufacturing. In India, which earns Samsung around $12 billion in annual revenue, a strike over wages is disrupting production.
A source said the job cuts were being made in preparation for a slowdown in global demand for technology products as the global economy slows.
