Samsung is, and perhaps always will be, one of the largest consumer electronic firms on the planet. The firm is essentially the heart and soul of South Korea’s economy and they’re involved, somehow, in everything from IT infrastructure to producing cellular networks all over the world. When a company gets as big as Samsung has become, and on a global scale no less there are bound to be ups and downs. For Samsung in China, the downs have been felt more often than the ups over the past couple of years, and in a new report out of Korea, the Chinese region has been where the South Korean giant has focused most of their recent job cuts.
According to the Korea Herald, Samsung has cut their Chinese workforce numbers down to a mere 4,500 employees, this is down from the 60,000 employees based there in 2013. 12,500 of these employees were said to be cut from the Chinese operations in the past year alone. Elsewhere however, Samsung has made cuts to continue their streamlining operation, with their South Korea Headquarters losing 2,500 staff and the Latin America region losing 3,000. Meanwhile, Europe lost the same as Latin America, losing 3,000 staff across the region. This doesn’t mean that Samsung is losing employees overall however, as the report from the beginning of this month goes on to state that Samsung employed 325,677 people globally in 2015, an increase from the 319,208 back in 2014.
The real story here is the deep cuts in China, Samsung has struggled to climb their way back to the top of the ladder in China over the past few years. The firm has now started to move away from the region, refusing to pump more funds into a market that gives them little in return. Things have gotten so bad for Samsung in China that they no longer feel their brand name is going to earn them sales, with the Galaxy range of devices losing the Samsung name from the hardware altogether. It’s not all bad news for Samsung throughout Southeast Asia however, as the region – along with Japan – saw as many as 28,000 people joining the firm in the past year. It does however, appear as though Samsung is effectively giving up on China, and judging from their recent sales figures that might not be such a bad idea.