Samsung Dangles $560,000 Bonuses To Keep Engineers From China

Messages from Chinese headhunters obtained by Choi's office offered pay increases of 60% to 100%, three to five years of guaranteed employment, rental housing, and help with children's school costs.

Fifteen of the 27 didn't go straight to CXMT. They first took jobs at equipment or materials suppliers, foreign companies, or universities. Choi's office said that may have been a way around non-compete agreements, which usually last one to two years.

The engineers stayed at CXMT for 2.9 years on average. According to their public profiles, 26 of the 27 have since left, and seven moved on to other Chinese chip companies, including Huawei's Hong Kong research center and HiSilicon.

Public career records don't establish why they left or whether any technology was transferred. But CXMT grew quickly over the same years. Its research and development staff rose from 2,606 at the end of 2022 to 7,491 in June 2026, and in September it said its fifth-generation DRAM was in mass production.

Choi's office suggested CXMT had drawn on the engineers' experience to build its factories and stabilize production. That illustrates the retention problem: experienced engineers can help a competitor build capabilities that remain after they leave.

Seoul's legal tools are limited.“There is no legal basis to crack down on or restrict lawful overseas hiring,” Korea's industry ministry said, according to Dong-A Ilbo. Non-compete clauses expire, and the detours through suppliers and universities suggest they can be waited out.

Interest in working abroad extends beyond the chip industry. In a Bank of Korea survey of 2,694 researchers with master's or doctoral degrees, 42.9% of those working in Korea said they were thinking about moving abroad within three years.

So the companies are competing on pay. SK Hynix moved first. Its profit-sharing system sets aside 10% of operating profit for employees, and a labor deal in late 2025 removed the old cap of 1,000% of base salary for the next 10 years.

The first payout under the new terms came to 2,964% of base salary, with a fifth of each payout deferred over two years, KED Global reported. A company official told the outlet the system was expected to curb talent losses to domestic and overseas rivals.

Samsung's new plan follows the same logic. The special bonus arrives as shares, and most of them can't be sold right away. Workers can sell a third immediately, another third after one year, and the last third after two years.

That ties two-thirds of the payout to Samsung's share price for up to two years. Those holding periods alone don't establish whether employees must stay to keep the award.