Samsung employs more foreigners than Koreans

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung Electronics revealed that more foreign employees were hired to work for the global technology giant and undisputed kingpin of Korea Inc., than Korean ones.

The world’s largest producer of flat-screen televisions, mobile phones and computer memory chips, said that non-Koreans accounted for 54 percent of some 221,700 workers employed worldwide at the end of last year. It was the first time that Korean nationals at the company were outnumbered by their international colleagues.

As it cements its status among the true industrial mammoths in world business, Samsung has been employing an increasing number of workers as its activities spread to virtually every corner of the planet. A global feel is also evident at the company’s Korean base in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, where engineers and workers from India, Pakistan, Ukraine and Russia are frequently seen.

Samsung has long been hiring talent from developed nations like Europe and North America, places which continue to be key markets for consumer electronics and mobile phones.

The company is now recruiting more people from developing regions like South America, India and economies from the old Soviet bloc as its business tentacles extends their reach.

Around 84 percent of Samsung’s 165 trillion won (about $140 billion) in revenue last year was generated from foreign countries.

While it may be premature to call Samsung the new Google, a Samsung executive said that the company is certainly going in that direction with a workforce that is beginning to resemble the United Nations.

``The transition is not just about hiring more foreign workers, but changing the corporate culture and changing working conditions to inspire more creative input. These are the things that Google is doing impressively and these are the things we need to be doing impressively,’’ he said.

``The number of foreign workers at Samsung is increasingly rapidly and will continue to do so,’’ said Samsung Electronics spokesman Lee Seung-joon.

``An advantage of our global networks is that we are able to hire qualified and well-educated people from countries where they remain undervalued, such as technology experts from India. There are a lot more people applying for Samsung as well as we are now well-established as a global brand.’’

Samsung is particularly interested in attracting foreign talent in software, an area which has been an acknowledged weakness. The company recently hired a number of engineers who formerly worked for handset rivals like Nokia, Motorola and Research In Motion (RIM) as it looks to upgrade offerings in smartphone software.

However, it’s awkward for Samsung to boast about an international workforce when a bad economy and decaying job market has put pressure on Korean conglomerates to create more jobs here rather than elsewhere.

While the country’s official jobless rate is 3.7 percent, the figures for young people are much higher as those leaving school and graduates continue to bear the brunt of the downturn.